


The Thin Red (Blue) Line

by tori1116



Series: The Fuzz(y Logic) - The Jayroy Cop Drama [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Police, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Because Det Jason, Bisexual Character, Canon-Typical Bad Stuff, Canon-Typical Violence, Could be triggering, Drug Addiction, Drug Withdrawal, Established Relationship, Gay Character, Just Think of It as a Random Episode of the Jayroy Cop Show, Language, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Police Brutality, Some Fluff, There're a lot of people with a lot of stuffs going on in this imaginary TV show of mine, except one of them did tell someone about it, which had just started and they didn't tell anyone about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-07-03 01:39:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 48,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15808716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tori1116/pseuds/tori1116
Summary: The first story of Detective Todd (chaotic good) and Detective Harper (neutral good), which actually is the Pt.3 of the entire Jayroy cop drama series; in terms of the first part being Jason's return to Gotham five years after a traumatic event and the revenge mission he performs in secret while working as a GCPD police detective, and the second part following after his revenge and describing his continuous life on the police department and forwarding relationship with his detective partner Roy, a former addict who's been helping Jason to move on, except in this story, is he the one who has to deal with the past he thought he has already left behind.While dealing with his past, Roy also comes to learn about something new.FYI, the proportion of past-Jaderoy in here wouldn't be any larger than present Jayroy, but it's still kind of considerable.





	1. Chapter 1

“Hey,” he called to the two men who were staying in the front of the room. Despite his great effort, the voice only drifted faintly out of his lips, barely touched the air before falling out of existence altogether.

It wasn’t enough to bring these men around from the poker game they had been playing. He tried again, licking away a drop of sweat from his upper lip and raised his voice, “— _Hee…hey!_ ”

The one in a cheap suit—the Harry, of Harry and Marv from Home Alone, since he hadn’t caught either one of their names--glanced at him.

“What?” asked the man with little interest, attention remained mostly to the cards he was holding.

He stared up at the man, eyes burning a sick bright. “You gotta—you gotta help me out, man. I ca— I can’t take this much longer.”

The desperation in his tone was rich, and he flinched at just how authentic it sounded. He didn’t only _sound_ desperate, or look desperate, he _felt_ desperate. And the fact that he was in truth being desperate sicken him even more than the actual sickness that was tumbling in his stomach.

The two men exchanged a look, something cruel with amusement.

“Sounds like our guy’s ready to talk,” started Harry.

“No way,” the other one, Marv, remarked in fake surprise.

“Told you he’ll crack,” Harry shrugged nonchalantly, putting down his cards onto the table and rising up from his seat.

“Yeah, but I think it’ll take like, a week or something. It’s only been two days! You think a hotshot like him will be tougher than that,” Marv exclaimed.

“Hotshot my ass,” Harry snorted dismissively. “Everyone in the neighborhood knows our boy here’s a _crackhead_. What’s more easier to crack than that?”

He met Harry in the eye as the man came in front of him. “I’ll…I’ll tell you where she is. I’ll tell you—whatever you need to know, I’ll—just fix me up, man. You’ve got to fix me up--”

“Yeah, sorry, pal, that’s not how it works. You’ll have to spill first, _then_ you get your fix. If you ask nicely, of course.”

“Okay, okay that’s cool, that’s--” He dropped his word all of a sudden, head twitching up and down violently while his body started to shake.

“Goddammit.” Harry reached out to him, couldn’t really afford to have him died from a seizure before he provided them some answers.

The window of opportunity was slim, but he caught it. He bumped his head precisely against Harry’s jaw the moment the man drew close. It hurt him as much as it did Harry, who stumbled a few steps away, disoriented.

His partner would’ve given him hell for just how long he had to take to work on the lock. It was one of the first tricks he had learned from the streets, it shouldn’t have taken him more than a few minutes, if only he didn’t need to be wasting so much time picking up the pieces of his sanity, which had fallen apart the instant he had come crashing down from the high, and having to fight back the pain from overtaking his body.

Freeing himself from the handcuffs, he rushed forward into Harry, knocking the man down onto the floor and grabbing the gun he kept in his waistband.

Alerted, Marv rose up from his chair, hand reaching for his own gun. He shot Marv a good shot. Perhaps not so good by his normal standard, but it was plenty of good enough given his current condition.

Several minutes later, he stumbled his way out of the place.

He didn’t know where he was going. There’s no direction ahead. The ground underneath him was turning more and more like the quicksand, as his feet were consistently tripping him over. He was walking the longest walk he had ever had to walk, and he felt like he was only a step away from falling down into the great below. 

Luckily, he hit the street before the street hit him with a knockout hit.

Seeing him reel by, a man came out and approached him, smiling at the smell of a business opportunity. “S'up, buddy, looking for a score?”

He shoved the crook away roughly, not hearing any of the slurs behind his back, just insisted on pulling himself further and further along the road, until finally, he spotted a man in a dark blue uniform who was strolling across the street.

“Hey, watch it.” The beat cop took a step backward and scowled, displeased by the fact that a slob had lurched right into him.

He clutched tightly at the arm of the uniformed officer.

“Get my partner here,” he demanded feverishly in a hoarse voice. “—Call the precinct—tell them to get Detective Jason Todd.”

 

***

 

With his gun packed and his jacket on, he was already half-leaving his desk before ended the call.

The desk phone was smashed down in a clap. Montoya raised her head in confusion, eyes shifting away from the paper work she had been doing to Jason.

Bullock, also noticing the rough movement, regarded him with a jeering smirk.

“What’s the matter, tough nut? Who’s ruffled your feathers now?” said the old geezer carelessly. Until he realized Jason, with a grim face, was heading straight to him.

The smirk on Bullock’s face faltered into an unease look.

“I need to borrow your car,” he said to Bullock curtly.

“What?” Bullock frowned. “No, hell no! Go use that two wheeled hearse of yours!”

“I can’t. I may need something with more room.”

“Then take your partner’s car!” Bullock replied. “Where’s ginger anyway?”

Jason didn’t answer the question. “His is still getting fixed up.”

“Oh yeah--you two morons crashed the Camaro doing that chase last week. I remember.” Bullock broke into a fake grin. “And it reminded me exactly the reason why I don’t want any of you knuckleheads go near my car.”

“I’m a much better driver than him,” Jason simply replied, not having any patience for this. “Just give me your car key, and I won’t tell your buddies at the bar you’ve been cheating in poker.”

Montoya, sitting at their conjoined desk, raised an eyebrow at her partner. Bullock denied promptly under her judging look, “I never do that. Punk’s trying to frame me up!”

“Just lend him your car, Bullock.” Montoya rolled her eyes, reaching over to fish out a set of keys from the pile of trash on the old detective’s desk.

“Why don’t _you_ lend him your car,” Bullock grumbled, watching ruefully as the younger woman take the car key off his keychain and fling it over to Jason.

“I don’t want him to scratch _my_ car,” Montoya replied reasonably.

Giving the woman a quick thanks, Jason hurried out of the station, finding Bullock’s car at its usual parking spot and drove to the Park Row area by the shortest route he could think of.

He saw the police officer who had called him earlier soon as he had reached the location.

The uniformed officer was standing right outside an alley, with his arms crossing over his chest, eyes keeping track at something on the ground inside.

Noticing his presence, the officer turned around and greeted him, “Detective.”

“Where is he,” Jason asked bluntly.

The officer stepped aside from the front of the alleyway, showing him the red-haired man inside who he had been tracking down for days.

Jason had known something was wrong, ever since he had gone to pick up his partner two days ago but had only found the kid Roy was sponsoring hovering outside the small house, looking vaguely strained and worried.

He had called to the kid with a confused frown, asking him what he was doing. The kid, who had seen him and Roy on duty together, recognized him as Roy’s partner and explained.

According to the kid, Roy was supposed to meet him up at the group session which was scheduled the night before. When the man didn’t show up, the kid had tried to call him, but Roy never answered his phone.

At first, the kid had been annoyed by the fact that his sponsor had apparently stood him up. Disappointed and vexed, He had left Roy an angry voice mail, saying he was being an irresponsible asshole. Only some sleep later, the kid had grown to regret that little outburst. Thinking the man had just gotten caught up in his police work, he had tried to reach Roy again at the morning, attempting to apologize, and started getting worried when the man still hadn’t answered his phone.

“I came to see if he’s okay. But no one’s home,” the kid had told Jason.

Jason had opened the door with the spare key Roy was keeping under the rug. The kid was right, the house was empty.

He had sent the kid away with a recommendation of Dr. Leslie Thompkins, a family friend he knew who might’ve helped the kid out if he needed someone with his sobriety, thinking it might come useful to the kid seeing his sponsor wasn’t around at the moment. He had reassured the kid that there’s nothing to worry about, only he didn’t believe it one bit himself.

He and Roy had only become partner for no more than two years, but he had already grown to know the man good enough that he could see clearly that the redhead would never hang out his sponsee to dry if he ever had a choice.

Being someone's sponsor was a serious commitment. Though the redhead might not take a lot of things too seriously, but this was one of those things he did. He was as committed to it as he was his own sobriety. Jason had never said it out loud, but this was the exact reason why he had never trusted anyone more than he trusted Roy Harper.

The red-haired detective might have many faults, he might be a slob and a loudmouth, a self-proclaimed funny guy who loved calling people by some stupid nicknames, drove like a lunatic and never did his paper work; but he would never back down from something he committed to, whether it was sobriety or partnership. He would never walk away from things he valued, no matter what, or how much it might cost him.

After the kid had left, Jason had searched the place. Roy’s cellphone was left inside the house. Seeing the clothes he had been wearing when Jason had last seen him were lying over the laundry basket, he supposed Roy had indeed gone home after they had departed at the station.

There’s no sign of struggling. No clue was left inside the house that could tell Jason what had happened. Only his instinct had told him there was trouble.

Two days Jason had been stomping through the streets, questioning everyone who had good reasons to hold grudges over him and Roy. No one was able to answer his question. He was on a wild goose chase, up until an officer called to his desk this afternoon and informed him about a male on the street--red-haired, about 6-foot tall, mid-twenties—was in a state of delirium and asking for him.

Unsure if it’s really Roy or someone else who matched the description, Jason had asked the officer to get the man on the phone, but the officer had said it would be impossible, since the male in question had just collapsed on him right after throwing up on the street. The officer then asked whether or not he should get an ambulance. Weighed on it for a moment, Jason had eventually told the officer to wait till he got to the spot.

Roy, had been put down inside the alley by the uniformed officer, was slumping against the wall with his limbs stretched loose. His long hair was lightless and a mess. His face was ghostly pale, glistering with an unusual amount of sweat.

Jason went past the officer promptly, squatting in front of Roy, hand reaching out to check him up. The redhead was shivering, barely awake.

He put his hand over Roy’s forehead, getting goosebumps from the feeling of damp skin that was as cold as a body in the morgue.

“It looks like he’s having a crash,” said the officer behind him. “He said you’re his partner, so he’s a detective too?” The officer crossed his arms in thought. “I should call an ambulance and report it in.”

Jason shot him a look. “Thanks for contacting me, officer. You’re done here.”

“What?” The officer scowled. “You want me to…leave this? If an officer’s on drugs, you know I’m required by the regulation to report it.”

Something sharp tore cross the back of Jason’s mind. He moved up the second the officer reached for his radio, pressing the shorter man up against the wall.

“You listen to me and you listen to me good,” he growled in a deep voice. “This man is my partner, who has been working for a mission which is assigned personally by _Commissioner Wayne_. So unless you want to tell the commissioner how you blow up his mission because you’re a stickler for regulation, I suggest you walk away, keep your mouth shut and forget this ever happened.”

The word itself might’ve been a made-up lie, but the danger within his tone was real.

The officer looked up uncomfortably at the bulky detective, intimidated by both the ominous look on the detective’s face and the thought of getting roasted by the commissioner of the GCPD.

Waited until the officer had walked away, Jason turned back to his partner, lowering next to Roy with a knee dropping down onto the ground.

“Dammit, Roy--the fuck have you been? What happened to you?” Jason asked in a deep voice, eyes glaring at a couple of fresh marks that were standing out significantly on one of Roy’s arms.

The red-haired detective, who was always more than eager to talk, remained silent, making only some faint strangled noises between his ragged breathing.

He pulled Roy up onto his feet, bringing the redhead out of the alley and into Bullock’s car, which, at this point, appeared to be an exceptional idea to borrow.

The redhead balled himself into a knot as soon as he was put down onto the backseat.

Before starting the car, Jason took a short moment regarding Roy from the driver seat.

Given his current condition, an ambulance might be exactly what Roy needed. Except he couldn’t have his partner being taken by an ambulance, since the redhead didn’t ask the officer for an ambulance but had asked for him only.

It meant Roy didn’t want anyone else to learn about this, and everyone in the station surely would if he was getting put into the hospital.

The thought of bringing Roy to Leslie’s came to Jason’s mind.

The clinic would be a perfect place to go. Leslie could provide Roy with the medical care and keep everything between them. But he decided against it, eventually, started the car and set a route to his own place.

He wasn’t sure if he was doing Roy good or endangering him by not driving him off to the clinic. He just felt like he needed to handle this alone. It was his partner, after all. Unless Roy came around and said so, or the situation was proven otherwise when Roy did not come around in the next hour, he would be taking care of his own partner, by his own.

Roy came around several minutes later during the ride, jerked up from the backseat all of a sudden and spilled his guts onto the floor of Bullock’s car.

Once he was done vomiting, he started in confusion, “Wha--?”

“Morning, sunshine,” Jason replied humorlessly, glancing over Roy through the rear-view mirror.

“Jason?” he croaked, looking jittery and lost. “-- _Jason_?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” Jason softened his voice. “What happened.”

The redhead didn’t answer at first, slumping back slowly into the backseat. “Jade,” he breathed out at last, with his eyes clammed shut.

“Jade? As in Jade Nguyen?” Jason frowned, simply remembering her as the woman who was involved with the case he and Roy had been working on.

When the woman had been brought to the station days ago for questioning, Jason had learnt that she and Roy had a history. He didn’t ask Roy too much about it, only told the redhead to stay away from that dark-haired woman.

Roy had diverted the focus then, cracking some joke about him being jealous. Except Jason didn’t said it out of jealously; he told Roy not to get involved with her because he could smell “bad news” a mile away.

It would appear that the redhead just wasn’t any good at doing what he was told. Although, according to the captain, neither of them was.

“What were you doing with her?” Jason inquired.

“I didn’t _do_ anything with her,” Roy growled in a low voice. “I—she came to my place, the night after we questioned her. She asked me to—she said she couldn’t stand working for Scarface anymore. She said—she said she wanted out, and she—asked me to help her skip town.”

“And you did?”

“I…I tried to convince her to testify against him,” he said rabidly, eyes glistering up with a feverish sheen, breathing fast and shallow. “I did. I tried. I tried to get her to help us bring Scarface down. But she won’t—she won’t do it. Dammit, Jason--she said I owe her. I…I _owe_ her—so I— but I didn’t go through it. No. No, I changed my mind once I saw the drugs—the drugs...I can’t--she looted him— _fuck_ —fuck, should’ve never trusted her…”

Roy bit down on his teeth. The greenness of his eyes died out as he glared deadly into the void.

He went on laboriously once he came back from his trace, “When I said I'm going to bring her in, she—I didn't think-- _how could she_ \--she _stabbed_ me…with the **_junk_** _._ ”

The car slowed down then stopped altogether in the middle of the driveway, as Jason grew frozen by the excessive surge of anger.

Some driver behind them honked impatiently. Jason stepped on the pedal and got the car moving.

Keeping his eyes on the road, he demanded grimly, “Who took you.”

“Scarface and his guys. They’re following her. They broke in while I was out. They couldn’t find her. She was gone. So they took me instead. They thought I know where she is, and they saw—they saw what she did, and they thought—” Roy let out a bleak, ugly laugh. It was the most ugliest laugh Jason had ever heard him made.

“They thought it’s a good idea to fix me up, get me hooked on the shit, so eventually I’ll just give her up for a fix.”

Face pressing down against the backseat, the red-haired police detective, one of the most toughest guy in the GCPD— _one of the best people Jason had ever known_ —raved wildly in a shaking voice, “--I don’t _want_ the fix, Jason. I want it out--of my system—I want-- _Fuck_ \--I want them to fucking _pay_ —I…I want— ** _Ten fucking years_** —how could it…I can’t—I can’t, Jason, you’ve got to help me.”

“Don’t you worry about it,” Jason replied quietly, making a promise to himself that every one of these perps would soon heavily pay.

He tossed a glanced at Roy. “I’ve got you, buddy.”

Finding comfort in his word, Roy cooled himself down, raising his head slightly after a couple of deep breath.

“That’s…that’s sweet,” he remarked ironically in a murmur. “That’s sweet, Jaybird. That’s basically sweet talk coming from you. How come you only sweet-talk me when I had gotten a huge fork in the ass?”

Jason met his eyes through the rear-view mirror. The humor was dry, and not at all reaching his eyes. But still, it was good to see the redhead still acting like himself.

Jason rewarded him with a faint smile.

“I would've made a joke about it, but I think it’s too soon. Needless to say that I have class, Harper,” Jason replied. “Save the comedy until you’re recovered.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Each one of their questions was met with brisk, simple responses. Jason, perching on the edge of the interrogation table and had decided he was the “bad cop” this time, leaned towards the woman, staring directly into her eyes and demanding for some real answers.

The man was six-foot tall and intimidating. But the woman merely returned him a cold, derisive smirk, looking over the dark-haired detective and stroke up some small talk with Roy, who was sitting opposite to her with his eyes regarding her deeply with mixed emotions.

The interrogation was getting nowhere. Seeing this as a fact, Jason turned around, sending a look to Roy before stepping aside.

Received his silent message, Roy moved up and told the woman to “wait here”. The woman responded with an ironic sneer, saying “take your time, detective. I’m all about waiting stupidly for a man”.

The sharp point of her sarcasm scratched him, paralyzed his body with hidden poison.

Realized Roy had stopped moving, Jason paused at the door, glancing at the red-haired detective over his shoulder. “You’re coming?” he called to Roy.

Roy turned away from the woman then, following his partner out of this room and into the observation room next door where they could take some time to regroup.

“Got any bright idea?” asked Jason dryly, once Roy had drifted in behind him.

Roy didn’t reply at first, propping his shoulder against the one-way mirror that separated this room and the interrogation room, hands shoving under his armpits.

“Perhaps I should talk to her,” he said, eyes staring across the mirror. “--Alone.”

He didn’t need to be anymore clearer than that for his partner to understand. It was far from the first time they were alone with a suspect in the interrogation room with no surveillance. It wasn’t anything different than whenever Jason’s hand had “accidentally” slipped, or whenever they had let themselves into private places without getting a search warrant first because they had found the door "was already open”. But instead of went with the idea like he usually would, the dark-haired detective tilted his head, blue eyes glancing at Roy thoughtfully.

“One more complain and Gordon’s gonna have our heads,” Jason stated in a plain voice.

Roy flicked him a glance, semi-amused. “You’re worried about complain? Who are you and what did you do to my partner?”

Whatever witty response Jason was about to give was dropped away, as Gordon entered the room looking for an update.

The old captain didn’t seem to be in such a good mood right now. The two detectives exchanged looks with each other, trying to see if either one of them had done something to annoy the captain today.

Neither Roy nor Jason could remember doing such thing yet, so Gordon’s grumpiness must’ve been produced by the diet that his daughter had started putting him through lately; it was known to be a bad mix with his smoking cessation.

Gordon joined them in front of the one-way mirror, eyes regarding the woman in the other room. “Who is she,” he asked.

“Jade Nguyen,” Jason answered, “—a former member of one of the most notorious gangs in New York’s history, got sentenced to five years in prison after Anti-Crime brought down her gang in a raid. Just gotten out of jail about a year ago, hasn’t been here long but already seems to dig her way deep into our city’s criminal circle.”

The captain nodded in acknowledgment. “You think she’s our perp?”

“We think she’s involved,” the detective replied. “Nguyen had been seen hanging around Gunner, our main victim, all the time up until he died. The two of them was real close. But while his body is still warm, she’d already received a job offer from Arnold Wesker, aka, Scarface, and now is working for him as a nightclub manager. We know Scarface is currently making big money with this new drug, which would’ve been Gunner to make if he hadn’t died at his first meeting with the Mexican cartel few weeks ago. Roy and I believe she sold him out to Scarface, gave him all the information about the secret meeting. Everyone knows Scarface had been looking for a way to get his foot into the drug business lately but having trouble figure out the angle. Nguyen provided him the perfect opportunity, so he swooped in, took out our guy Gunner and replaced him.”

“You’ve got her testimony on this?” Gordon asked.

“Not exactly,” Jason muttered. The captain sent him a sharp glance. “She didn’t really give us anything so far.”

“So all these things you’re telling me right now, it’s just a theory.”

“It’s not _just_ a theory, cap.” The detective, never one to bow down before authority figure, crossed his arms over his chest, lips contracted sternly. “We’re right about this. You know we are.”

The captain scoffed at his reply. “I hate to break it to you, detective, but ‘this’ you said?--Is only your speculation, and it means jack squat if neither of you could get the witness to tell this exact story on record or provide the DA with some actual evidence.”

“But personally, you do believe we’re right, right? Little ol’ dummy totally offed our guy,” interjected Roy absentmindedly, eyes glancing around from the interrogation room to Gordon.

While his detective partner responded in an agreeable hum, Gordon shot him a cold glare. Roy shrugged at the annoyed captain, “Just saying.”

“And I was just thinking why I had to fight the IA for you two, time and again,” replied Gordon gloomily.

The captain then turned his head around, taking a long measuring look at the woman behind the one-way mirror.

“Find a way to shake this woman up, or sent her home. I don’t care how you work this, but no more unauthorized stunt,” said Gordon sternly after a moment of thought. “You want to nail Scarface, you nail him down the right way, so the charges would stick.”

He looked significantly at Roy, who was slightly older and had a couple of years more experience in the force than Jason. “Be smart about this.”

“Aye aye, captain,” replied Roy with a lazy smirk, saluting the old captain casually.

Gordon sighed and walked towards the exit.

Once the captain was gone, the smirk on Roy’s lips melted away. His eyes drifted back to the one-way mirror, looking solemnly into the interrogation room.

The woman, sitting leisurely inside, didn’t seem much different than Roy had last seen her. She was still as beautiful as he remembered; still had all those sharp edges on her handsome face that promised to hurt.

“You think you could get her to talk?” Jason asked, getting back to what they had been on about before the captain had entered.

Roy took a moment to recall how many times exactly he could get this woman to change her mind about things.

“No, not really,” he replied at last, letting out a sarcastic snort. “No one could get Jade Nguyen to do jack shit if she doesn’t want to.”

Jason’s gaze followed his to the interrogation room. “What’s with you and her?”

Roy knew the question would come up eventually. Neither he nor Jade had pretended they had never met before, and given the way they had conversed with each other during the examination, it didn’t need to take a real detective like Jason to figure out that they were more than just acquaintances.

“We had a past,” Roy replied simply, wasn’t sure whether or not he was ready to talk about it right now if Jason asked a further question.

The dark-haired detective didn’t ask him any further question.

“We can’t get anything out of her and we have nothing to hold her with,” Jason pointed out, dropping his gaze from the mirror and moving around to the door. “—We’re wasting our time here. Let’s send her home.”

He went and poked his head out of the observation room, calling to the officer outside to send the woman free.

Roy watched as the officer opened the door and approached her, watched as her rose up and move away from the table easefully.

Before she walked out the interrogation room, she paused and tipped her head aside at the one-way mirror. In no sense she could’ve seen him, but her dark eyes found his green ones precisely.

A faint, cryptic smile floated up onto her lips.

“Later, cutie,” she said smoothly, smiling a Cheshire Cat smile at him. A smile that was haunting, secretive and elusive. A smile Roy had once loved so dearly and had been his only solace during the long stressful days.

It wasn’t entirely like six years ago when he had last seen her at the visiting area. Her eyes weren’t as stony, and her tone wasn’t as loveless and cutting; the only thing remained exactly the same it’s the fact that they were being at the opposite side of a glass, her walking away at one side, and him watching and overwhelmed by pain at the other.

For a moment, Roy stood stupefied, emotions coursing through his body.

A voice woke him up and pulled him back into the present.

“You okay?”

He moved around to Jason, who was able to keep the concern out of his voice but not so much of his eyes. “Yeah,” replied Roy, dryly and curtly. “Don’t worry.”

“Who said I’m worried.”

“Absolutely no one,” Roy shrugged, mouth curling up into a vague smirk. “—But thanks for asking anyway.”

“You’re welcome,” Jason replied in a grunt.

The young detective, street-wise and perceptive, stood with his face set and his brows furrowed, eyes regarding Roy for a couple of seconds.

“If you can’t get her to testify,” started Jason slowly, in a meaningful tone, “then you better stay away from her.”

His partner, as he always had been, was looking out for him. It was a sweet fact; but the taste of bittiness inside Roy’s mouth was too strong to be cleansed entirely.

Roy, aiming for a diversion, raised an eyebrow at his partner and joked, “What’s that, Jaybird? Is that jealousy I smelled? I’ve never known green is your color.”

“I'm not jealous,” Jason snorted. Then, taking a brief look into Roy's eyes, he said with a wry smirk, “--Though I also wouldn’t say green is never my color.”

Roy returned him a confused smile. “Is this you saying you like my eyes, or is this your way of trying to confess to me that you actually have a bunch of green dresses hidden inside your closet?”

“You’re a detective, you figure it out,” replied Jason indifferently.

The man was standing close at his side. The distance seemed adequate enough for Roy to reach up and bring him close for a kiss.

Roy did just that, wasn’t entirely sure if it was okay though.

This thing between them was still quite new, they had yet figured out the rules and terms.

Jason had yet talked to him about when or where was appropriate for what things. It was all unknown to Roy. But judging by the fact Jason leaned forward and engaged into the kiss, he guessed it was okay.

Later on, they left the station, getting around the streets by Jason’s bike, trying to figure out a way to link the murders to Wesker, ending up with nothing, then eventually heading back to the station to do some paper works.

Realized there were only a couple of hours left before he needed to accompany his sponsee to the meeting, Roy stood up, leaving his unfinished paper work on the desk.

“I’m going home,” he said. Jason glanced at him across their desks. He flashed his partner an apologetic smile. “Got a hot date tonight. Wanna change my clothes first. Don’t want to look all dirty in front of my date.”

“Okay,” Jason nodded unconcernedly, leaning his back into the backrest. “Just take your paper work with you.”

“I can’t. It’s a date, Jason. What kind of savages would bring his paper work to a date,” replied Roy, already walking towards the elevator.

Unlike Jason’s, his place wasn’t far from the station; he walked back home and changed his clothes as he had said, wasn’t expecting any visitor.

Someone knocked on his door right before he was about to go out.

Roy answered the door. The woman outside was standing with a duffel bag in one hand and a smile on her face.

“Hi, Roy,” said Jade, or as Roy had used to call her, Cheshire, because of that Cheshire Cat smile of hers and the fact that she had always come and gone like a shadow.

“You gonna welcome me in?”

Roy stepped aside and let her in. The smell of her perfume floated upon him as she strolled across the door, stroking his face briefly with its sweet, persuasive scent. 

“What are you doing here?” asked Roy, closing the door behind him and followed the woman into the living room.

“You mean here as in Gotham, or here as in your place?” she returned the question, taking a look around absentmindedly. “Nice house, by the way. Seems a bit big for a single cop. You’re seeing anyone?”

“That’s none of your business,” he returned. “What do you want.”

The question might sound blunt, but it wasn’t unfair. It was clear that the woman wanted something, otherwise she wouldn’t have come to him. She had told Roy once that she never wanted to see his face again, and she wasn’t the type of person who would easily change her mind.

Jade glanced at him over her shoulder, not answering right away. She walked to the couch, putting down the duffel bag she was carrying and sat down.

“I want your help,” she started then. “Wesker just came to me tonight. He knows about our chat at the station and he thinks I might’ve ratted him out. I’m done with him. That paranoid little old man has really gotten under my skin.”

“He’s gotten under your skin,” Roy started in a dry voice. “—that’s also the reason you sold Gunner out and had him killed?”

The woman stared blankly at him with her cold, hard eyes.

“I want out,” she simply put, ignoring the rhetorical question. “But I think Wesker has already put a watch on me. I can’t get past all his men on the streets by myself, you need to help me. His goons won’t try anything if I’m riding along with the Gotham’s finest.”

Roy shook his head.

“Why would you want to skip town, Cheshire?” he said. “You don’t need to leave to be away from him. Just tell us everything you know and you could have him put away.”

“Scarface may seem like a dummy, but he’s a shark in nature,” the woman responded with disapproval. “He won’t ever let off a rat.”

“We’ll put you into a witness protection program. You’ll be safe, I promise.”

She let out a snort in return, lips twitching up wryly.

Roy got to the couch and sat down next to her. “You want my help, and I’mma give it to you,” he regarded Jade earnestly. “But you have to talk. You have to listen to me."

The woman’s eyes rose up to his face, as his hand reached out and touched her gently in her shoulder.

For a second, the coldness in her dark eyes thawed, revealing a touch of something soft. Something vulnerable that he could remember seeing inside the person he had once fallen in love with.

It was only there for a split second though.

“Actually, I don’t,” the woman started, glancing sideways at his hand on her shoulder, weighing the hand down with the distain in her eyes.

“It’s you who should be listening to me here, _lover_.”

Her poisonous gaze fixed upon him.

“You owe me, Roy,” she reminded the police detective. “Given the way you’d lied to me, abused my trust and let me down—don’t you think you’ve got a lot to make up for?”

The sharpness in her tone was the exact duplicate of what she had torn him open with at the New York prison six years ago.

“ _\--It’s not that you lied to me,_ ” once she had learned about the truth, she had uttered in great fury, “ _not that you let me down and broke my heart. What’s worst, is that I let you. What’s worst, is that I’ve actually looked everywhere for you, waited for you to show up this whole time when I was in custody, when I was on trial. I knew it wouldn’t make any difference if you’d show up, but I looked and waited, because I just needed to see you, to just know you’re there. I let you do this to me. I let you trick me into needing you—into loving you—into believing what we had was real._ ”

Roy had sat back then, with his skin burnt by the toxic anger that not even the protective glass between them had had the power to shield off. And now he was sitting with his head hung low and his hands drooping over his lap, heart aching anew.

“You’ve got a ride?” moment later, he started in a low voice. “--Because mine is getting fixed up in the garage.”

“We’ll take my car.” She flashed him a smile, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Just give me a second to make a call, then we’ll be moving.”

She stood up then, walking into the corner and pulled out her phone.

While the woman was whispering to the phone, Roy was left alone on the couch with the duffel bag she had brought.

He was also thinking about making a phone call himself, wanted to tell his sponsee that he needed to skip the meeting this time. But before he did that, his attention was drawn, captured by her duffel bag.

There’s something strange about it. Something strange about this whole thing.

Jade Nguyen was one of the most capable, most independent women Roy had ever known. Why would a woman like her be threatened so, that she would’ve had to seek help from him, the person she had once despised with all her passion?

Roy wanted to trust her, wanted to believe that she only wanted a way out because she wanted out. That she wasn’t in some bigger trouble than she had let on.

His hand reached out despite himself.

Finished with her secret phone call, the woman turned back to Roy, expression turned grim as she saw her duffle bag was opened up, revealing hundred thousand dollars worth of uncut heroin.

“I can explain,” she started. “Only I don’t need to.”

“You’ll explain this in the station,” Roy replied gravely, already put together the whole story.

The woman didn’t just wanted his help to be out of this city because she was fed up by Wesker’s paranoia. She wanted to escape this town with the help of Roy—a police detective and the sharpest shooter in the GCPD who never traveled anywhere without his gun--because she had robbed Scarface and she knew the crime boss would surely have her head for that.

“I told you I’mma help you out, I mean it,” Roy told her, determined. “But I can’t do it by getting you out of town. Not when you've got a bag full of this. You're going to the station with me.”

Carrying the duffel bag on his shoulder, he walked up to Jade, putting a hand on her forearm, ready to bring her personally to the police station.

“I thought by some miracle, you won’t let me down this time. But I guess you just couldn’t help yourself,” Jade muttered thoughtfully, meeting him straight in the eye while moving up her hand, touching Roy’s cheek in a ghostly touch.

Her lips twitched with bitterness. “—You, Roy Harper, always a disappointment.”

The other hand of hers, the one that wasn't cradling Roy's face, crept onto the side of his neck. The drug worked quickly; the effect came over his body almost the same instant she injected him.

Immediately, his heartbeat slowed. His blood turned warm. With only one touch, Roy was tipped over into devilish bliss.

He was, at this moment, free of stress.

Whatever pressure he had had on him demolished in a flash; whatever troubles, whatever fear, whatever pains. Whatever struggle he had spent about a decade to put up to just to keep himself away from this sweet, sweet, magnificent damnation.

All of it, it had all gone out in a quick, swift flash.

Before the darkness embraced him fully into its heavenly embrace, Roy was thinking to himself about just how much he missed this, and how in the world he could ever have a chance to survive this.

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

“I’ve got you, buddy,” uttered the man quietly, with a trace of tenderness in his tone that was rarely displayed.

It got his ship steady on the high sea. Roy took a couple of deep breath, steering himself away from the tempest he had been stuck under and finding shelter in his old dwelling.

The quip he made was succeeded in getting the younger man to reply with his usual irony and a thin smile.

Seeing Jason appreciate the sense of normalcy he was trying to maintain, Roy tucked his own lips slightly with approval, feeling relieved to know that the self-deprecating humor he resorted to wasn’t just a reprieve to him, but also a reprieve to his partner.

He had been too caught up in his own situation, he hadn’t actually thought about how strongly this whole thing might’ve affected Jason. How worried the ravenhead must’ve been for him these couple of days when he had been missing. How angry—how fiercely disturbed--he might be right now knowing what had happened to him.

Now Roy was cooled down, he could easily imagine. If he was in Jason’s shoes, he probably would be disturbed by anger as well. He would be roused by the fact that someone had wronged one of his own, might even lose his senses over it.

He couldn’t have Jason lost his senses. Not over this. Not ever.

Jason was a shrewd character, sophisticated, calculating even. Anyone who had grown up in the streets of Gotham and lived the same experience as his would grow up to be like that.

The man was, overall, collected; never as reckless as some of the people in the station seemed to think. Most of his misconducts were only just him being in defiance of the regulations. There’s always some sort of thinking behind his wild behaviors, two years they had been partnering, Roy had never seen the man rushed things without reasons or going anywhere blind. But just because Jason was smart with things and could usually keep his self-possession didn’t mean he would never lose himself to things like anger.

The keen senses Roy had with him were reclaimed now his head had turned calm. His nose might not be as good as his eyes, but it wasn’t at all bad. He could catch a scent of restless anger, although thinned out at the moment, wafting among the pungent smell of puke inside the small car. It reminded him the suffocating smell he had caught once in that warehouse where Jason had eventually fulfilled his long-term goal and shot down the mass murderer.

The strong, violent smell, of a lava that had been deposited richly and deeply inside the core, glowing fiery red with a vengeance, with the determination—the living will--of cleansing the world of an evil.

It had been over a year since then. Roy trusted Jason would never again pick up that same old anger and repeat to anyone what he had done to _Jack Napier_ that day. As far as Roy could see, the younger detective had indeed taken up his advice and moved on, letting bygones be bygones.

However, in view of what was happening right now, it did seem to Roy that what appeared to be long gone could still find a way to be back. And although he wasn’t in such an adequate shape for it, it was still his duty to look out for his partner.

He had already brought Jason into this, the least he could do for him right now was to stay calm, keep himself together, at least for as long as he could help it.

Roy moved up a little, eyes glimpsing at the car rug he had just puked over. “Sorry about the…” he began casually, keeping any heaviness off his tone and away from the already stressful situation. “--Whose car is it?”

“Bullock,” Jason replied. “Thought a sedan might come in handy, so I borrowed his.”

“Look at you, always prepared. Why am I calling you Jaybird when you're actually an Eagle Scout,” Roy remarked, mouth working to flick the man his winning smirk.

To his frustration, a pang rose up and ruined his hard work. He sank back into the backseat, hoping his partner didn’t notice his grimace.

He started again as the pain yielded, “Where are we going.”

“I was thinking about my place.”

The car stopped in front of a red light. Jason stared at the road, tapping his fingers on the wheel while waiting for the light to turn green, head running in thought. “I can take you to rehab,” he offered. “No one will ever know.”

“You mean no one will know for sure,” Roy returned mildly.

He had no doubt that Jason could come up with some convincing story for his sudden leave. The man had probably been covering up for him these couple of days. The captain might buy his lie, Renee and Bullock might be too, along with some of their logistics friends, or at least they would be willing to put up with it. But these were pretty much the only people in the department who would.

Jason hadn't really had much reliability left in the station after the internal investigation he had been put through for the Joker case, and the rumor about Roy doing drugs actively was just never dissolved.

People had been whispering about it for years, ever since he had been seen hanging out with the junkies in the most drug-infested corner on the streets. He never bothered to explain how he wasn’t there for the drugs but for the people. If someone wanted to gossip, let them gossip, it didn’t bother him because he had nothing to be ashamed of. Not when he knew, day in and day out, he was living clean.

Roy rolled his tongue in his own mouth. The rancid taste of throw-up was disgusting. He took a few seconds to consider the option.

If what happened to him right now had happened to anyone else, he would strongly suggest them to seek professional help, would tell them that it was only the safest thing to do since self-detoxing wasn’t just torturing but also incredibly dangerous.

He was lucky he had ever survived that, and the fact that he had quit cold-turkey once might be just the reason why he would be falling this hard right now.

If it was a decade ago, he could’ve taken up all the amount of drugs that had been shot up inside him these couple of days in one night and still be going. Quitting cold-turkey had wrecked his tolerance.

“No rehab,” Roy said at last. He didn’t want to be a hypocrite, but getting detoxed in rehab would take too long. A medical evaluation would be required; it would take about a week before the detoxification even began, and when it did, it would be a long and secure procedure.

The physicians and staffs would make sure he was provided with good treatment. The rehab clinic would be treating him well. But he didn’t have time for treatment. He didn’t need to be well treated. He just needed to _get clean_ , as quickly as possible.

“No need to go to your place either,” he told Jason easily. “Just take me to a flophouse and give me a few days, then I’ll be all good.”

By now, Wesker must have known about his escape already. Roy couldn’t go back to his own house. It would be the first place Wesker go if he was looking for him.

“Do I look like an Uber driver?” Jason returned harshly.

Roy frowned at him, confused.

“If you just want someone to give you a ride and don’t give two fucks about where to drop you, then why don’t you call an Uber.”

Roy regarded him for a moment. Jason wasn’t looking at him but plastering his eyes on the road.

“Does it mean I don’t need to pay you?” started Roy thoughtfully.

The dark-haired detective turned to meet his eyes in the rear-view mirror. He flashed Jason a smirk, not his winning smirk but a smirk at least.

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to make it sound like you won’t give two fucks about me. You give all the fucks, does it sound better?”

“Damn right it does,” his partner grumbled, eyes no longer solidified in grimness.

Roy rewarded him with another smile.

After the car had started again under the green light, he uttered, voice quiet with a hint of amusement--a hint of appreciation, “You just won’t leave me alone, won’t you?”

“You don’t ever give me the satisfaction when I ask you to do that, so why would I,” Jason replied. The trace of tenderness had returned to his tone. “--We’re going to my place.”

“That’s cool. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. Having me at your place this time won’t be fun. It’s gonna be ugly.”

“I’ve seen ugly,” replied Jason impassively. “I’ve seen it, I don’t go bedding it.”

“I sure hope you don’t,” Roy remarked, content with this moment of reprieve they were having, even though he knew it was only momentary.

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

While the redhead was making some phone calls, she waited at the corner with her shoulder against the closed window, having the gun she had brought hanging down in one hand and keeping her eyes and ears open.

The red-haired woman returned to Jade once she was finished making the arrangement.

“I found someone,” the woman said, “It'll take a couple of days to set up the exchange. I’ll ring you about the details later.”

“How about tonight?” she replied, disliked the idea that she had to get stuck in this city any longer.

“How about you take your gun and go home, before I tell Wesker exactly where to find the thief he’s looking for,” the woman returned impassively.

Jade regarding her for a moment.

“You won’t do it.”

The redhead snorted, eyes glancing scornfully at her gun. “You think you scare me?” she said, turning around to attend one of her many plants. “I’m a local, cat. I’ve got guns pointing at me all the time.”

“I’m not saying you’re scared, I’m just saying you won’t do it,” replied Jade, lips rising up into a smirk. “If you want to sell me out to Scarface, you would’ve done it already.”

Isley was known to be a strong, independent woman, just like herself; and just like her, she wasn’t too fond of men either. Jade was willing to bet that the redhead wouldn’t let any man lay a finger to a fellow woman, even though the woman was unfamiliar to her, who had sneaked in to her place, ambushed her with a gun and telling her “I have something to sell and you’re going to help me sell it”.

Isley might not be her biggest fan right now, considered all that; but she liked Scarface even less, and she definitely wouldn’t mind getting a cut of the deal.

“I need it to be done faster,” Jade told her.

“I’m getting you the deal as fast as I could,” Isley replied, placing down the watering can she had been using. “With Scarface out there looking for you and the missing drugs, I need to arrange it carefully, make sure no one else will find out our deal. Otherwise, your head won’t be the only head that has got a bounty on it.”

The woman regarded her sternly. “You want me to help you cashing in the drugs, I help you cash in, but I won’t let this drag me down.”

“Fair enough,” uttered Jade in a dry voice.

She didn’t want to be stuck waiting for Isley to arrange the deal, but there’s nothing else she could do at the moment. She needed the money. She could’ve left the city first then made a deal with someone later, someone from her old crew, perhaps; but it would be too risky, carrying a bag of drugs on the road.

It would be a risk she’s willing to take, if only she was riding alone. Since she wouldn’t be alone on the road, she needed to play it safe.

“Be in touch soon, Ivy,” she said.

Few minutes later, she had left Isley’s place and gotten back into her own car.

Once she had shut the door, fastened her seat belt, she felt instantly trapped.

She sat staring out of the car window, in the same way she had used to be staring out madly of the gate of her prison cell, the same way she had stared at those closed doors and windows of the rooms at her many foster homes.

She shouldn’t have been stuck here, trapped. She should have been far away from this city by now, should’ve gotten to somewhere she wouldn’t be reined in by anything, not prison, not the police, not any stranger, nor any man who had come to her life and make a mess of it.

She should be smelling the scent of freedom, should have gotten enough money to build up the life she wanted to live with the only person she could ever truly imagine spending her life with. But instead, she was stuck here in Gotham, the city of oppression, and it was as much as _Roy’_ s fault as Wesker’s.

She would’ve had her money by now, if Wesker would just honor their deal, make her a partner in the business and give her her share of the profit like they had agreed to, instead of cutting her short and leaving her to run his crappy little club.

And she wouldn’t have had to worry about Wesker, if Roy—finally--would just be the person she had once thought he was. But no, Roy Harper had to be _decent_.

She wondered how decent the red-haired man might still be after she had drugged him and left him at his own place. The man had seemed to have his mind blown out in an instant. She wondered what happened after that. She wondered if she still a bit cared.

She used to love that man, used to think they could have a future together, think that, with him, she could have had the family she had never had as a child.

Loving that man was the most foolish mistake she had ever made; because the man she had loved was a lie.

Back then, she had thought Roy was different, but he was no different than any man in her life who had disappointed her, abandoned her, hurt her.

Decided that she didn’t care one bit about Roy Harper, she started the car, driving to see someone she did care about deeply.

Keeping herself invisible from all eyes Wesker had planted on the streets, she drove to the neighborhood where the small apartment was located.

She waited outside the apartment door after giving it a few knocks

The blond-haired girl opened the door, greeting her with a scowl.

“Keep making that face and you’ll be looking like a Pug before you’re thirty,” started Jade carelessly with a faint smirk.

Disregarded her wisecrack, Artemis demanded, “Where have you been? You told me to pack up for her three days ago, said you guys gonna be leaving, then you never show up.”

“There’re some hiccups,” she replied, walking across the door and into the living room. “Where is she?”

“She's asleep,” said Artemis curtly, coming after her once the door was closed. “What do you mean ‘hiccups’? What happened? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing you need to worry about, sis,” she said while heading towards the bedroom.

The blond girl shook her head in exasperation. Her hand reached out, catching Jade by her elbow before she could get to the bedroom door.

“You’re in big trouble, aren’t you?” She regarded Jade with her sharp eyes. “Dammit, Jade. Why can’t you just go straight? You’re supposed to be going straight!”

“Going straight doesn’t pay,” replied Jade dully.

Taking a glance at her foster sister, she said, “I don’t need the money for me. I need the money for her, for us to have a decent life together.”

“That’s bullshit,” Artemis snorted, arms crossing over her chest. “Of course you need the money for you. You’re the only one who is always thinking about getting some money, she isn’t. She only ever thinks about where her mommy is, why she had only gotten to see her in prison back then, and why now that she’s out of jail, she still keeps disappearing on her.”

Quickly, she turned around, going up at Artemis’s face in a flash. “Don’t you _dare_ make it sound like I’m doing any of this to hurt her. I _am_ doing this for her,” she growled, eyes shinning with anger. “I can’t have her living the life I've lived. Her life needs to be _better_. To be _good_.”

The young college girl, although was forced to take a step back, was only slightly cornered about her aggressive posture.

Artemis stared thoughtfully at her, lips twitching with disapproval.

“If my life with mom had taught me anything,” started her foster sister from her last foster home. “--It’s that all you need for a good life is to have someone who loves you always being there for you. Maybe you’d know this too if you hadn’t run away from us.”

The home she and Artemis had shared was the one home that had ever been nice to her, that had ever provided her the closest thing she had for a family.

But no matter how much Artemis and their foster mother were like a family to her, the relationship she had with them--same as any relationship she had ever had with anyone--was a counterfeit.

She hadn’t any true family in this world save for one.

The bedroom door they were standing in front of opened before she could say something to Artemis in return.

“--Mommy?”

Woken up by the noises they were making, the little girl walked out of her own bed, head poking out of the door to see what’s going on.

Her heart thawed by the sound of her mutter. “Hey.” She squatted down in front of her daughter, regarding the little girl with her expression softened, a tender smile drifting up to her lips. “Hey, honey, how are you doing?”

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

“It’s been a long time,” the woman said, “How are you doing?”

“Great,” he replied, voice blunt with impatience.

Once he had realized how insolent he might’ve sounded, he tried to redeem it with a smile, didn’t want to seem disrespectful to the older woman.

The woman raised an eyebrow at him, not at all impressed by his false smile.

“How may I help you,” she cut to the chase, knowing clearly that Jason wasn’t here to do a social call.

They hadn’t gotten to see each other since the last time she had bumped into him on the streets. It had been almost a year ago, and it was the only one time in many years she had ever gotten to see the young man and have a chat with him. She hadn’t even realized he was back in Gotham before that.

“I’m hoping you could get me some Suboxone,” Jason responded, sitting down across Leslie at her desk.

“Why?” the female doctor frowned. “What do you need it for.”

“It’s for a friend,” he said.

When he had asked Roy how he would want to do it after he had brought him home, the man had answered “the natural way”, then given him a list of herbs, which, said Roy, could be used as the traditional remedies for pain relief and detoxification in the Native American culture.

Roy appeared to be convinced that those were all he needed for his recovery. But Jason wouldn’t be so sure about that.

The redhead had been pretending he wasn’t in much pain, but he was; and as the time passed, the pain he endured would only grow stronger and stronger.

According to Roy, it had been less than a day since he had been given the last dose, so what he was going through at the moment was only just the beginning. Within a day, the symptoms would peak. Jason was afraid that, by then, the herbal remedies wouldn’t have enough magical healing power to deaden them when they had worked to strike down the redhead.

Leslie looked at him thoughtfully. “Why don’t you bring your friend to me,” she said, “then I could decide which medical treatment will be the best choice of option.”

“I don’t think he wants the medical treatment.”

“People don’t often want what they need, what is best for them.”

Jason didn’t reply to that. Instead, he spent a moment to come up with a strategy.

“He didn’t ask for it. The Suboxone. I just need it in case he needs it,” Jason started, bringing up a note of appeal in his voice, lips curling up into a small, hopeful smile. “Can’t you just help me out, Leslie? Just do it for me as a favor? You’re here to help, right? You’ve told me before, so now I’m asking you to.”

“I told you that years ago, and you said you don’t need anyone's help. Don’t try to manipulate me,” the woman snorted coldly, as though she was impervious to his appeal.

Jason stared at her relentlessly, attempting to move her by showing her just how much he needed her help for the medicine.

The appealing look he was wearing might have been tactical, but what he had told Leslie wasn’t unreal. He did feel like he needed to have the medicine ready, in case things were getting too much and he needed something that could relieve Roy’s pains and discomforts. He couldn’t have himself sat there and done nothing while his partner was suffering. Roy always made it his mission to come forth and get him out of his own head when he had started to suffer inside; always doing something to get his mind away from the dark thoughts and remain at peace. Now was the time he returned the favor, he needed to be able to do Roy what Roy had done for him. He needed to have all the tools he could get. All the tools he could think of. He needed to make sure he had something to offer the other man in the time of need.

Eventually, his gaze came through the tough shield Leslie was holding up. The doctor let out an annoyed sigh, drawing reluctantly from behind her desk and to the cabinets where she kept the medicine in her clinic.

She returned to Jason with a bottle of pills in her hand. The smile Jason sent her this time wasn’t strained and false; it was warm with appreciation.

Before giving the pills to Jason, she said, "Promise you'll bring your friend to a professional when he needs one." 

"I promise."

"Be careful with this," she told him. 

With the bottle of pills put inside his pocket, he expressed his thanks and goodbye to Leslie before moving to the exit.

The woman’s voice rose dryly behind his back, getting him to pause at his feet. “How is Bruce?”

He looked at Leslie over his shoulder. The woman faced him with a complicated expression, which reminded him that, the last time they had seen each other, she had said she and Bruce hadn’t been talking for a time.

A lot had happened while he had been gone. He hadn’t asked what had set off this cold war between them, figured it could have been anything seeing this was Bruce after all.

“Still the great knight of the city, I suppose, I don’t really know,” replied Jason with a shrug. “I don’t run into the commissioner a lot.”

Leaving the clinic, he then turned to purchase the herbs for Roy’s recipes and also some digestible green food and some medical supplies he hadn’t got in his apartment that he figured might come in handy.

By the time he got home, the red-haired man wasn’t lying on the bed that Jason had helped getting him on, but was nesting on the couch with his eyes gluing to the TV, flipping from channel to channel with the remote.

The noises of the apartment door being opened startled him. The detective, who normally packed with a laid-back attitude, glared around to the door, green eyes widened and lack of focus. His shoulders tensed.

Realized it was Jason, he loosened up, recollecting himself quickly and turned to flash Jason a strained smile.

“What’s the matter with you, Jaybird? How come you haven’t got a porn channel?” he chided in a funny way, waving the remote in his hand for emphasis, as if the nonsense would make Jason overlook the fact that he was showing signs of anxiety.

Jason hadn’t overlooked anything, but he was willing to give his partner the satisfaction. “Why would I need porn when I can get laid anytime I want,” Jason responded.

Roy let out a snort. “Have you been working out?” he retorted, lips crooking with amusement. “You should go do some workout, man. Your ego is getting fat.”

“But that’s exactly how I get laid. People went crazy when I show them my big, fat ego,” replied Jason easily. Roy repaid him with a huff of laughter. The sound was far too dry and too coarse compared to his usual laugh, but it was still a nice enough sound.

Jason looked at him closely. Despite the fact that Roy had got sweat glistering on his pale face, he was wrapping a blanket around his body, knees drew up and pressing in front of his chest, looking like he was trying to survive a late night of winter when it was an afternoon of July.

Putting down the bags of stuffs he was carrying, Jason went to check the air conditioner temperature. It said it was at seventy-five degrees. Since the room would be getting too hot and too suffocating without the cold air, he left the air conditioner open, only turned up the temperature a little.

He went back for the stuffs he had put down, taking out the bottle of pills, placing it down silently onto the coffee table in front of the couch, leaving it there with Roy and then turned to put everything else in place.

When he came back, the medicine bottle stayed unopened. He stood regarding Roy who had his focus returned wholly into channels surfing.

He felt like he should say something, but he didn’t want to pressure the man into taking the Suboxone, even though it would only help him feel better. If Roy wanted to do it the hard way, it was his choice. No one had got the right to choose how he handled his own personal matter besides him.

Over a year ago at that warehouse, Roy had respected his choice of how to handle Jack Napier. Now he had to respect Roy’s choice of how to handle his personal demon as well.

It was only day one, anyway. He could always change his mind later. Jason thought.

 

***

 

He didn’t return to work, but stayed at home in day one, spending the rest of the day with Roy, who, although was a bit restless and weary, only seemed to have some mild discomforts and didn’t start shaking and vomiting again until three in the morning when his symptoms peaked.

Jason was asleep at the time.

Since there’s only one bed in his single bedroom apartment, he had figured he should take the couch and leave the bed to Roy after the man had settled to sleep; but Roy had scoffed at his idea, thinking it was ridiculous that Jason had to give away his own bed for him, especially considered the fact that they had been sharing each other’s bed for a couple of weeks by now. “It’s not contagious,” the man had started with some half-hearted irony. So Jason had turned back from the door. “Don’t get handsy,” he had said while getting onto the bed with Roy. In response, Roy had given him a playful shove on the shoulder and said, “I won’t as long as you keep your own gropey hands under control.”

Awoke by the abrupt movement, Jason moved up, seeing Roy stagger out of bed through the darkness and into the bathroom.

He followed the redhead quietly.

The bathroom door was open, illuminating the apartment with its palsy light. The man inside had his head hanging over the toilet seat, puking a lot more than what he had actually contained in his stomach, which had been just fluid mostly, due to the detox diet he had put himself on, he hadn’t consumed anything so far except water, some juice and herbal tea.

Jason drew closer to the detective, squatting down at his side with a hand reached out, pulling up his long hair so it wouldn’t get stained while the man was vomiting.

A thorn of grief pricked him as he laid eyes on Roy’s hair.

It might be a trick of the light, it might only be his imagination, but regardless, when he stared at the hair in his palm, he could see it being in a different shade of red.

It seemed to be a touch darker, less lively than its normal tone.

Roy had taken a shower right after he had gotten to Jason’s place. The shampoo had washed the grease off his hair, but it didn’t seem to Jason it was able to shine up the red hair and bring back its fine light.

Jason didn’t always like Roy, had only tolerated his appointed partner when he had first gotten to the department; but he always liked his hair.

Minutes later, the puking stopped. He stayed at Roy’s side as Roy stayed hanging over the toilet seat.

“Go back to sleep,” the redhead gritted once he had suppressed the shakiness. His voice hoarse and dismal, his breathing shallow.

Brushing Jason’s hand off his head, he reached up and flushed the toilet, getting onto his own two feet.

Jason rose up as Roy moved to rinse his mouth. “What about you.”

“What about me,” Roy retorted sharply with sarcasm.

After rinsing his mouth and splashing water over his face, he turned up his eyes to the mirror, glaring into it with his lips pursed, his wet face cold.

Finding Jason standing behind him with his eyes gazing at him in the mirror, Roy seemed to be irritated initially.

Only a moment later, his expression in the mirror shifted. The corners of his mouth rose up wearily. “Go back to sleep, Jay,” repeated Roy, turning away from the bathroom sink. “I’ll be back with you in a minute.”

His hand moved up to the back of Jason’s neck, bringing their heads together, bobbing against his temple lightly before moving past him and drifting out of the bathroom.

Switched on the light of the living room, the redhead went to brew himself some tea.

Instead of going back to bed as he was told, Jason wandered after him into the open kitchen.

As the older man turned around from the stove and laid eyes on him, Jason spoke preemptively, “I don’t take orders from you.”

Roy let out a vague, noncommittal hum, mildly amused.

He waited for Roy to finish his tea, then they went back to bed together.

Roy laid on the bed with his back to Jason. Jason slid an arm over his waist.

“Gropey hand,” the redhead remarked, voice soft and quiet. His own hand moved to pat the back of Jason’s hand gently in a somewhat placating manner.

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

For a half an hour or so, he fell into sleep, leaving all his troubles behind with his physical form and started dreaming about being happy with a bunch of friendly ghosts.

The ghosts he dreamed of danced with him, laughing with him in a place where the music never stopped, where he was free from care, from worry, from loneliness and from responsibilities. He sang along to the music as the ghosts entered his body, letting them caress him, wash over his inside with sugary kisses.

They elevated him, cutting the chains of gravity off his feet. He felt like he was the most happiest as he was being with them. He felt like he was back being a child, who was still a complete stranger to the concept of pain, of loss, of life.

However, his illusory happiness was short-lived, unlike the flu-like symptoms he was getting stuck with in reality.

A ghastly chill swept into his bones, jolting him back to the physical world where his veins were empty of white and there’s nothing occupied his body but sickness.

He came around from the rough landing between realms with his breath hitched. His body curled up under the blanket, protecting itself from the cruel chill that was hitting him from the inside.

His mind, although was upset and exhausted, was wide awake. The fact that he wasn’t alone hadn’t slipped his mind. He pressed his mouth into the crook of his arm, so he wouldn’t mistakenly groan out loud while he was working to cope with the revived sickness and the sense of loss that could easily be worse than any physical sickness.

After a quick, abrupt invasion, the chill that had woken him up cleared away. Roy drew the blanket down to his chest then, feeling it was getting too hot, too heavy already.

The sun had arisen, shining the room through the curtains.

The alarm was at his side of the bed. Roy lifted his head to check what time it was. Despite the fact that he hadn’t got any date on his schedule, he had this odd disquieting feeling like he had overslept and that he should get out of bed immediately.

It was only quarter to six. It was too early for anything. He didn’t even normally get up and go jogging until six-thirty.

It had only been a couple of hours since the sickness had roused him up from bed at three in the morning.

Knowing both him and Jason could use some more rest after the rough night, Roy laid his head back onto the pillow, trying to return to sleep. Except now he had realized the sun was up, he was getting hypersensitive to the tingling sensation of having the sunlight crawling over his body.

His skin was itchy. His stomach was sick. He felt numb everywhere and his heart was gnawed by the imperative yearning for a dose of pure satisfaction.

Exactly one hour later, he moved up, couldn’t keep himself in bed any longer. He detached himself from Jason and got out of bed quietly, didn’t want to wake the other man.

Leaving Jason in the bedroom, he went to pour himself a glass of water, chugging down the water into his sore throat only to puke it all out in the following minute.

Once he was done emptying his stomach, he went to freshen up. The man who was supposed to stay in bed walked into the bathroom just when Roy was brushing his teeth.

He took a glimpse at Jason’s reflection in the mirror. His blue eyes were sober, which said clearly to Roy that he had been awake for much longer than he was pretending to be.

It wouldn’t come as a surprise to Roy if Jason hadn’t been sleeping at all. He had tried not to, but he had been tossing and turning a lot before he had finally slipped into unconsciousness, and Jason had always been a light sleeper.

“You should get some more Z’s,” started Roy after spitting out the toothpaste. “Cap isn’t gonna give you a smiley sticker just for getting to work early.”

“I’m not going to the station today,” the detective replied, shoulder bumping against Roy as his hand reaching out for his own toothbrush.

Roy turned around from the bathroom sink to Jason, eyes regarding him thoughtfully.

“Shoot,” he retorted with a stolid face, “What happened, little buddy? Has someone been making fun of you at work?”

Jason looked askance at him. Roy shook his head, lips stretching into a vague sneer.

“I don’t need you to babysit me, I’ve got this,” he said clearly. “Just go to work, Jason. One of us has to keep working on our case. Since I’m a little busy at the moment, you’ll have to do it.”

There was no way Jason wouldn’t want to go back to work, find a way to put Wesker and every person who had given assistance to his crimes behind bars. He must’ve wanted to do it as badly as Roy wanted to. The only reason he wasn’t doing it already was because he felt like he needed to take care of Roy first.

Roy appreciated the thought, appreciated the fact that he had his partner being here with him, helping him through his recovery; but he could take care of himself.

He didn’t need the man to stay watching over him while he was shivering and sobbing desperately for a fix, didn’t need him to pat his back while he was vomiting, or help cleaning him up after he had unfortunately made a mess of himself.

There’re better things Jason could be doing out there rather than being stuck here with him and getting smothered slowly by the suffocating air of despair that Roy knew he would soon be reeking of. That he feared he might be reeking of already.

Not seemed to quite approve of what Roy was saying, the dark-haired detective stared at him with a scowl. In an attempt to dispel his doubts, Roy lifted a hand, bringing the younger man into a deep kiss that he knew could help getting his mind off things.

It was a good kiss, judging by the look on Jason’s face.

Roy hated the fact that he couldn’t be able to share his feeling about it. He usually loved kissing; but at the moment, his sense of taste was lost, and his usual passion was drowned by the sickness. Although the physical contact was still nice, the kiss itself felt entirely bland to him.

“I know how hard it is to keep away from this, but you have to be strong,” Roy quipped in a serious manner.

“Why do I always have to,” Jason returned dryly, feigning defiance. “Why can’t I just skip work, let someone else take care of the dirtbags out there while I cuddle up with some redhead.”

“Because you love taking down the dirtbags, cowboy. It’s your biggest passion. Besides, you can’t slack off for long. You’ll get tired of it and be missing work before teatime.” Roy flashed him a smile. “--Don’t worry, man. You’ll still have some redhead to cuddle with when you get home. I’ll personally see to that.”

Giving Jason a playful pat on the butt, he stepped out of the bathroom, went to make a cup of juice for himself and a set of breakfast for his partner.

The man joined him in the open kitchen once he was done freshening up.

Right before Jason was about to leave the apartment for work, a thought of something came to Roy.

Remembered how far beyond the laws Jason could easily take in some particular situation, he called to the man and said, “Don’t do anything that’ll get yourself into troubles.”

Keeping his back to Roy, the young detective paused at the door for a few seconds.

Finally, he turned his head around, glancing at Roy over his shoulder with a plain expression. “Define ‘troubles’.”

“I’m serious, Jay. I don’t wanna go back to work only to find out I’m getting another partner. I like the one I have,” Roy told him, afraid that the case Jason had to go back working on had already become a personal matter to him and worried about what the man might do to settle this matter.

Scarface and everyone who was an accomplice of all the murders, the drug dealing and the kidnapping—everyone who had involved in taking away _his decade of sobriety_ \--Roy wanted to make them pay, and he could see Jason want it too. But while all he wanted was to see these people behind bars, Jason might have wanted something different, something more.

It’s not that he didn’t trust Jason to know better, but he had seen how strong Jason’s desire for revenge was, how deeply his anger ran and how much he would be willing to give for his own version of justice.

About two years ago, this young, dark-haired detective had come to the station as a man who had nothing to lose. It was important that Jason remembered he wasn’t that man anymore. Now he had a future in the GCPD. And under no circumstances Roy would let anything take away his future.

“Don’t do anything that’ll get yourself fired, or worse, in prison. Stay smart, okay?” Roy reminded him, staring earnestly into Jason’s eyes until he could see there was assurance in them.

“When am I not smart?” the man replied at last, lips rising up into a thin smirk.

Roy returned his smirk. “Alright, stop flinging your big, fat ego to my face. You have me already.”

After Jason had left home, he held himself together for a while longer, until the sickness rushed in and smote upon him with full ferocity.

It was just as ugly a scene as he had predicted. He was glad that Jason had already left the apartment at this point and didn’t need to suffer through it.

He was forced to spend hours in the bathroom, having fluid running out all of his body holes. His eyes blurred. His body couldn’t stop shaking. When it was done and he eventually gathered enough strength to remove himself from the toilet, his feet sank and he almost fell on his head.

He scraped his knees and one of his elbows trying to keep his head safe from the fall. The scrapes didn’t hurt. He could hardly notice them among the nausea, the stomachache, the sore muscles, the rotation of being burned up from the inside and getting chilled to the bones, and on top of all, the absolute dreadful feeling of a broken heart that just wanted to get _fixed_.

For a moment, he stayed on the bathroom floor with his body curled up, head tucking down inside his own arms.

In confusion, he groaned in prayer to all the deities out there to make this illness in him go away and never again come back.

It didn’t go away, not today, not for a couple more days at least; but it did subside in the end.

He crawled up once he had regained his senses, pulling his feeble feet to the shower, turning on the water and setting it into a warm temperature.

He only came to notice that he was still having his clothes on when he felt the wet fabrics sticking heavily to his skin. He didn’t do anything about them though, just stood still under the shower with his head hanging low, letting the water run until it cooled down entirely.

When he finally stepped out of the bathroom, he was distressed to find that it was only a while past noon. He thought he had already passed half of the day by now, felt like he had already been awake for too long by now. But the day was still young.

Putting the wet clothes inside the washing machine, he went to change into one of Jason’s T-shirt and a pair of shorts that he figured he must’ve had left in here the last time he had spent the night.

He slumped on the couch, feeling weak and still overall sick. His mind was exhausted, yet overexcited.

He turned on the TV, staring at it blankly while pondering whether or not he should go jogging.

Doing some exercise could help accelerate the detox progress. But he gave up on the idea quickly, couldn’t trust himself to go outside and didn’t take a wrong turn.

There’re too many temptations outside on the streets. Too many temptations everywhere, thought Roy sullenly, biting his nails as he glared out, legs shaking in agitation.

A wild anger dropped over him. He popped up from the couch all of a sudden, pacing around the house like a caged animal with his back hunched, his hands tucked under his armpits.

He was getting angry with the thought that there’re so many temptations out there, so many things out there in this world that were waiting to _destroy_ _him_.

Then the irrational anger was gone just as sudden as it had come, being replaced by a flood of sorrow.

The flood swirled him up, attacking him with a series of memories.

The memory of the very origin of this life-long struggle of his.

The memory of craving badly for company, for love.

The memory of asking for help and understanding but had had merely a disappointed look and some angry words in turn.

The memory of being cast out; the memory of the haunted feeling that he was always an outcast--that even though he had been granted the family title, at the end of the day, it was only a title, and he was still essentially an outsider who could be sent off with a wave and a smile if not a kick in the butt.

The memory of having his world burnt down by a ruthless fire.

They rolled him over from side to side. His knees went weak under their terrible power. Roy dropped himself back in the couch, face burying deep inside his palms.

After a moment, the sorrow left too, and this time he was left _hungry_.

He was starving and the starvation gobbled up his senses.

Dropping down the wet palms off his face, Roy, with his thoughts and senses lost to the hunger, turned his eyes to the door, glaring at it obsessively like a man possessed. He sat fantasizing himself walking past that door, and go out and get a fix.

He was one step away from rushing out of the apartment, but he kept himself in place, eventually, driving off the hunger by thinking to himself about how he could still face his sponsee again if he did that; how he could again stand up in front of _Oliver_ ; how disappointed everyone who had given him love and support the last time he had gone through this would be by him; how disappointed _his partner_ would be by him.

With the feverish shine in them had died away, his eyes went dim.

Prying his gaze off the door, Roy glanced down. A bottle of pills entered his sight.

He stared at the bottle of Suboxone Jason had left on the coffee table, thinking it would only be better if he took some.

Roy didn’t take some. Instead, he got up and turned to find his own cellphone that Jason had brought from his house.

The phone was lying on top of a drawer. Roy picked it up, sitting down on the floor with his back against the drawer and dialed a number.

“Hey,” he started once the call had gone through. Realized that his voice was sounding too deep, too heavy, he lightened it up a bit. “How’s my favorite ol’ mama?”

“Still not old,” Dinah replied briskly. “How are you?”

“Great. Great,” he said, but his voice was still on the brink of cracking, and Dinah, the mental therapist who had given the great support he needed the last time he had put himself on self-detoxing and had been helping him to maintain his sobriety ever since, could easily hear that.

“What is it?” she asked, a sense of concern laced with her kind voice.

“Nothing. Just call to hear your voice. Been missing you.”

“I miss you too, Roy,” she replied gently. “You should come by sometimes. Ollie and the kids will be thrilled to see you.”

“Maybe later,” he said. “I’m in the middle of something right now.”

Not wanting to get further into what’s going on with him, Roy diverted the subject then, asking the woman about Oliver, about Connor and Mia.

Unlike the many times they had talked, this time he didn’t say much, letting Dinah take up the conversation and just listening to her mostly.

Her voice was soothing, full of warmth.

With his head leaning against the drawer, Roy closed his eyes, letting her warm voice wrap him up just like the arms she had used to put around him the last time he had been broken down by this same pain.

When she was done bringing him up to date on everything that had happened in Star in his absence, she asked in a quiet voice, “You’re okay?”

He paused for a beat, before replying genuinely, “I’ll be.”

“You better,” the woman said, then turned into silence for a moment.

Highly aware of the obvious fact that Roy was going through something, she told him, “I’m not going to force you into telling me anything if you’re not ready to talk. But just know that I’m here for you whenever you need me.”

“I know,” he smiled. “Be seeing you soon, ol’ mama.”

“See you soon, little man.”

After the phonecall had ended, he stayed sitting on the floor for a couple more minutes.

Then he got himself on his feet again, feeling ready to go through the rest of this day and the days that followed.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

As he reached the crime analyst’s office, the woman was already sitting inside working on something with her computer.

Hearing the tap-tap at her door, she looked up, frowning slightly in annoyance.

Jason greeted her with a “morning”, walking past the glass door and into her windowless office.

The woman deepened her frown, looking confused. “Morning?” she parroted in a skeptical tone. “What time is it?”

“Almost nine.”

She glimpsed at her computer for confirmation.

Once she had read the time on the computer screen, she let out a profound hum. “I should really ask someone for a windowed office,” she muttered. “It’s hard to keep track of time without the natural light.”

“Why don’t you ask your dad? I’m sure he could arrange that.”

“I can’t ask him,” Barbara snorted. “If I ask him, he’ll just ask me to drop his diet plan in return. I’m not going to spare him that until he gets his body into good condition.” She pondered briefly. “Maybe I could ask Bruce. He definitely owes me a nicer office after all the works I’ve done.”

Letting out a noncommittal hum, Jason asked curiously while sitting down across her, “How long have you been camping in here?”

“Well,” she started thoughtfully. “—How do I smell?”

“I can’t answer that. The IA has enough problems with me as it is. I can really do without being accused of workplace sexual harassment.”

Barbara gave him an amused look in response.

Drawing slightly away from the computer, she leaned into her wheelchair and regarded Jason properly.

“Tell me what you want, detective,” the crime analyst said, “--not that I don’t enjoy the small talk, but as of this moment, I’m much more interested in things like eating and showering rather than beating around the bush. So how about you just be frank with me and tell me what you’re here for.”

“I need your help with something,” Jason said, just as she had guessed already. “I want you to help me locate a woman named Jade Nguyen.”

Yesterday, after he had helped Roy settle in his place, he had called the station and issued an APB for Nguyen. It hadn’t gotten any response so far.

He passed the profile he had brought to Barbara. The red-haired woman nodded simply after giving it a quick read.

“Sure,” she said. Her desk was swallowed up by piles of books and papers. She turned to place Nguyen file next to the stack of case files that were piled up nearest to her. “I’ll get to it once I’m finished with the other stuffs I’m working on.”

Jason responded with disapproval, “Can’t you get to it now? It’s important.”

“So do all these cases I’ve got on my hand,” replied the crime analyst strictly, darting Jason a sharp look from behind her glasses. “I can’t just shift my priorities every time someone comes to me and asks my help with a case. If I do that, I wouldn’t have gotten anything done.”

“This isn’t only a case,” Jason said. “It’s personal.”

Something in his tone raised Barbara’s attention. The woman turned to meet his eyes, brows knitting together in thought.

After studying Jason’s expression for a moment, she shook her head, putting down the file somewhere near her.

“Your partner will at least try to sway me with compliments,” she grumbled ironically. “--I’m not putting down everything else just for this, but I guess I could manage to keep up my other works while trying to find you this woman.”

“Thanks,” Jason smiled.

Once he had turned to leave, the crime analyst returned to her previous position, fixing her gaze on the computer with her fingers moving on the keyboard dexterously.

Jason paused at the door for a second before calling out, “Barbara?”

She glanced up. He flashed the woman a smirk.

“I think you look and smell really nice,” he paid her a genuine compliment. In return, the woman snorted, but not without a trace of smile on her face.

After leaving Barbara’s office, he made another stop at the Major Crimes Unit.

Bullock wasn’t at his desk; either was on a stakeout somewhere or still snoring in bed after a night of drinking. There’s only Montoya sitting on her chair sipping coffee.

After exchanging greetings with the female detective, Jason handed her the car key he had borrowed from Bullock yesterday, along with a fifty-dollar bill, asking the woman to deliver them to her partner.

“Why the money?”

“It’s for the cleaning,” he answered. The woman raised an eyebrow at him. “—There’s puke on the carpet.”

“Okay.” Montoya nodded her head slowly, expecting some further information.

He didn’t give Montoya any further information about what had happened to the car, just left the money and the car key to her before turning away.

Montoya raised her voice hesitantly from behind him. “Is Roy okay?”

He paused for a beat.

“What do you mean?”

The female detective sent him a look. “Come on, Todd,” she started in a sarcastic tone. “He hasn’t been showing up for days. I know something is up with him.”

Jason shrugged. “He’s lying up with flu.”

“Yeah? That’s why you’ve been getting all anxious and hiding away from the captain these couple of days? Because your partner has flu?” Montoya snorted and shook her head. “I’m not the captain, you don’t need to lie to me. If Roy’s in trouble, just be honest with me and tell me. Maybe I could help.”

She didn’t mean to, but her insistence somehow punctured his suppressed irritation and antagonism.

If anyone was to help Roy through what he was going through, it _was_ him. It should’ve been him. He should’ve been doing something helpful already, not being pestered by her for the answer of something that was none of her business.

The woman thought she could help, as if she could actually help the situation any better than him.

Jason returned sharply in a cold voice, “How about you help yourself first by coming clean to people about what’s really between you and Kate Kane.”

The shine of earnestness in her eyes was lost the second she was hit by the cheap shot. The Latino woman stared at Jason grimly with her lips pursed, making him instantly regret his poor choice of action.

The fact he was perturbed by everything on his mind was no excuse. He shouldn’t have lashed out at her like that, shouldn’t have come at her with the sexuality question that a lot of people in the station—men, to be specific--had already been bothering her with for some time.

Considered that she was a woman with brown skin, her life at the police department had never been easy; and it had only gotten significantly harder when some tabloid posted a picture with her and Kate Kane kissing at the annual ball a few months ago.

The picture was fuzzy, and her name hadn’t been mentioned since the press that had come up with this picture had only wanted to capture Kate Kane, the rich socialite who had just returned from military service recently, with a woman and not really cared about who this woman she had been with.

However, some people in the station could still recognize her on that picture. There had been a lot of whispering, a lot of jeering going on ever since. Although the strict announcement Gordon had made about gossiping and harassment at workplace seemed to have put the people in check, Jason was fairly sure that some male officers, with a lot of guts and not the least integrity, still badgered the Latino woman with this when no one was watching.

He regarded Montoya apologetically.

“I shouldn’t have said that. I haven’t been sleeping much and uh—as you can see, Roy isn’t here, and he…usually keeps me from doing stuff like this, so,” he started hesitantly. “…I’m sorry. For acting like an asshole.”

“Apology accepted,” Montoya replied curtly, turning her eyes away from Jason.

Giving one last look at her stiff face, Jason turned his head around, reckoned he had really offended the good policewoman this time and afraid that it would have to wait for his partner to come back and smooth things out for him since he had no way to fix it.

“Todd.”

The voice stopped him from walking away. He glanced back at the female detective.

“Let me know if you guys need anything.”

He stared at her, getting genuinely surprised until he remembered what Roy had said some time ago.

“ _There’re a lot of dirty ones. A lot of sneaks, a lots of obnoxious shithead who, frankly, just aren’t any better than the shitheads we send in jail,_ ” the man had replied thoughtfully when Jason had asked why he would chose to stay in this place and not ask to be transferred into somewhere nicer with less corruption. “-- _But we’ve also got some good people in here. People who’re actually here to serve, who think the word ‘justice’ really means something and would help anyone who needs their help without a thought. Granted, this place can seem pretty awful at times--you don’t need me to tell you what awful things this city has to provide, you know it better than me. But if you’d just look at things in a different way, you may see this place could actually be kind of comforting--I mean, we still have got good cops in this station. And if the GCPD could’ve got some good cops in it, then this world mustn’t be hopeless._ ”

The female detective might yet be honest with people about a certain part of herself, but she was at heart an honest person, who, with her upmost sincerity, was always to be of service.

It touched him, the way that she was still expressing kindness to him even though she was upset.

“Roy and I are sleeping together,” Jason burst out.

The woman blinked her eyes in confusion.

“Um,” she started, having no idea why she was given this sudden piece of knowledge and how she was supposed to response. “I don’t—” She shook her head, speechless.

“I can’t tell you everything,” Jason explained, “so at least I’ll tell you this.”

“I’ll…rather you just tell me what happened, but thanks for sharing, and uh, good for you? I guess?” She regarded Jason uncertainly. “I really don’t think this is any of my business.”

“Well,” Jason shrugged. “Who you kiss isn’t anyone else’s business either.”

He turned away then, didn’t wait for the woman to response. Sharing that private information wasn’t going to efface the unpleasantness he had brought up between them, he figured. But perhaps it could help the woman to feel easier about her difficult situation now she knew she wasn’t alone.

Finished with everything that had needed to be taken care of in the station, Jason got on his bike and rode to Wesker’s house.

For hours he sat on his bike patiently, watching the crime boss through a pair of binoculars as the man was going about his morning activities.

At this time of day, the man looked pretty much like a regular old man. He looked so mild, so timid, as if he wouldn’t even be bold enough to hurt a fly, let alone people.

Jason kept a watch on the man closely, hadn’t gotten fooled for a second and mistaken a monster for anything else.

The crime boss didn’t step out of his own house until one in the afternoon.

A couple of henchmen walked by his side as he finally came out, accompanied him into a Mercedes-Benz.

Jason started his own bike, following Scarface when he was going around the city.

Before his watchful eyes, the criminal put on an old play; doing all the same tedious things that Jason had already seen him done over a week ago, when he and Roy had put him under surveillance the first time after listing him as the prime suspect of their case and brought him in for questioning.

After going to the bank and some stores, the man made a few visits that seemed to be entirely innocent, taking some tours at all of his legal business including the night club.

Nothing Wesker had done so far could be seen as illegal; either he knew he was being watched or he was just being careful in general.

For a moment, Jason sat on his bike with his helmet on, thinking about how much easier it would be, how much resources it could be saved if he just isolated the crime boss from his securities, just took the man into a place where there’s no judge, no jury, but only him, instead of working ineffectually to put the criminal on trial and still having to hope that the judicial system wouldn’t yet again disappoint.

“ _Don’t do anything that’ll get yourself into troubles,_ ” Roy had told him, worried that he might’ve put himself under another internal investigation.

The IA had been out looking for blood, latching onto any smell of misconducts ever since Bruce--the Knight of Gotham, as the press called him--had taken up the post and declared to the public that there would be no more corruption, no more neglect of duty, no more police brutality in this city.

Even Roy, a man who risked his life in service on a daily basic, had gotten into troubles with the IA a couple of times, only because he sometimes forgot to act accordingly and had gone too hard on some people who belonged in prison but were rich enough to stay out of it while been too easy on the ones who just simply needed some help.

At some point, the holy war Bruce had begun had gotten twisted and been used as a witch-hunt by some people.

One misstep, then the IA would be onto him, working to take away his badge which they would’ve taken away already if his partner hadn’t lied for him during the investigation.

If it was a year ago, he would’ve just let them take it, would’ve just walked out of the GCPD without looking back, without regret.

Given now that he would like to keep his badge and preferably stay out of jail, Jason guessed that, like Roy had said, he would have to stay smart and leave no reason for anyone to remove him from duties.

The IA wouldn’t be on his back if there’s no reason for them to be; if there’s no misuse of violence, no unwarranted shooting, no any police misconduct—just simply nothing, no body, no crime, nothing to their knowledge.

Awhile later, he took off the helmet, leaving it on his bike and stepped into a nice restaurant where Wesker had gotten inside for some pie and coffee.

A waiter came up and greeted him. He walked past the man, heading to the table Wesker was sitting at.

The crime boss looked up confusedly as Jason sat down across him.

“Hi, there,” Jason started, tossing a glance at the piece of walnut pie the man was having. “You like it? You should get more, while you still can. I don’t think they serve pies in prison.”

“Wha--” the man stuttered. “What is this? I don’t—this is—you shouldn’t be here, detective, this isn’t your seat.”

“Neither should you, old man,” Jason replied. “Your transport must’ve been delayed. I hate it when it happens. But don’t worry, I promise you’ll get to your new home in no time.”

The man regarded him nervously from behind his glasses. “You—you’re bothering me. You shouldn’t—you can’t just come bothering me like this, you—do I need to call my lawyer?”

“Nah. And tell your dogs to chill,” Jason said, jabbing a thumb at the muscular men who were watching over him from another table. “I’m not here to make troubles. I’m just here because I want to look at you, just one last time, when you’re all happy with yourself and still think that no one could touch you. I find the face of a fool really funny.”

Wesker shook his head. “Is this about those drugs and the death of that drug dealer again? I told you, I have nothing to do with those.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly what your lady friend told me.”

The speech got Wesker to turn up his eyes, looking directly at him.

There’s something emerged inside those dim, mild eyes of his that Jason could see. Something vicious, something brutish.

Wesker cast down his gaze after measuring Jason for a moment.

“If you’re not here to arrest me, please leave, Detective Todd,” he spoke politely in a small voice, “I’d like to be left alone and finish my pie. You’re—your presence is not welcomed here.”

His henchmen rose from their seats then, moving to the table that he and Jason were sitting at.

“Sure,” Jason shrugged and stood up. “See you later, Wesker. Though I’ve got to warn you, the next time you see me, it’ll even be less of a pleasure.”

Under the scrutiny of the brawny crew, he stepped away from the table.

Wesker called to him softly before he fully walked away.

“Detective,” the man said, as though he was delivering a message for someone else. “Please tell your partner that Scarface says hi.”

Jason turned back.

When one of Wesker’s men latched onto his back holding him still, he didn’t struggle and launch a second attack, knowing that there’s nothing more he could do in here-- with all the witnesses being around--that could make him feel truly satisfied.

The chair Wesker had been sitting on was knocked over. The crime boss covered his broken nose, trying to stop the bleeding with one hand while scrabbling on the floor for the glasses that had flown off of his face with his other hand.

Seeing the manager of the restaurant step forward, Jason shrugged off the heavy hands on his shoulders, walking away from Wesker and his men who were busy helping him to get up.

He didn’t feel like he was doing a smart thing, physically assaulting Wesker in public like that. Blatantly assaulting people in public was bad. That’s why he rarely beat up anyone in public.

The man shouldn’t have _begged_ him for it, shouldn’t have pushed him into taking that one swing that wasn’t even nearly enough to fulfill his desire but only made it grow.

Jason got on his bike and put on his helmet, staring in front of himself with his vision darkened under his red helmet shield.

Once he had reached the next street, a car came out of a corner, following behind him at a distance.

A sneer crossed Jason’s face as he saw the car through the rear-view mirror.

Wesker might know he was only bluffing, might found it hard to believe that he had got Nguyen in his hand, seeing if Jason did have the woman stashed in somewhere and had gotten a statement out of her, then he sure would’ve arrested him already. But still, the man needed to be assured.

Jason roved around the streets, didn’t head straight to the destination but taking some detours deliberately, riding fast enough to make it seem like he wanted to avoid being followed but not too fast that the car Scarface had sent after him wouldn’t be able to keep track on him.

Gradually, his bike deviated from downtown, turning to a remote part of Gotham.

When Jason finally stepped off his bike and went into a deserted warehouse, the man who was working under Wesker’s order didn’t come out of the car and went after him, not right away. Instead, he waited until Jason returned to his bike after visiting the warehouse shortly.

Jason started the bike again.

Once he had seen Jason drive away, the man stepped out of the car, walking into the warehouse quietly with caution, holding up a gun in his hands and pointing it ahead.

The warehouse was empty. Noted that, the man frowned and slowly lowered his weapon.

A surprised yelp escaped his mouth as Jason’s hand reached out from the shadow and grabbed him.

Jason twisted his arm swiftly, putting his shoulder out before the man could even begin to struggle. The man cried out in pain. Jason took away the gun before it fell off from his nerveless fingers.

With one of his arms dangling uselessly at the side of his body, the man turned around, bumping Jason off with his torso then took a violent swing at the detective with the one good fist he had left.

The fist didn’t even come close to hitting him. Jason regained his hold on the man easefully after he had dodged the punch, dislocated his other shoulder and kicked him hard in his hamstring. As the man struggled to keep his footing, Jason grabbed him by the back of his head, bashing his face against the concrete floor.

The man stopped moving at once, lying on the floor with his face down.

Jason yanked up his head for once more.

But just before he was about to ram the man’s head into the floor again, he remembered that he should be smarter than this; that this low-life criminal here wasn’t the person he was _dying_ to smash his head in, that having this man died in here would only be an _inconvenience_.

Removed his hand from the man’s head, he turned to the exit and bolted the door. Although there could hardly be anyone snooping around this place, he figured he should be careful since he didn’t want any surprises.

Once the place was secured, he went back to the man, dragging his limp body all the way to the wall and dropped him there.

The man sat on the ground with his back leaning against the wall, shaking uncontrollably every time he inhaled a breath of air through his bloody nose.

Jason gave him a moment to catch his breath.

Seconds later, the man started, “The fuck?”

His words were heavily slurred. He tried laboriously to keep his eyes open so he could maintain his glare, but the blood over his eyelids made his eyes blink. “Wha--you crazy sonafabitch—are you trying to _kill_ me?”

“If I was trying to kill you, you would’ve been dead already.”

“This—this’s--” the man stuttered, spitting out some blood from his mouth. “You can’t do this to me! I have rights!”

“You have,” Jason nodded. “You have the right to remain silent. But if you know what’s best for you, you’ll talk.”

“Oh you bet your ass I’m gonna talk,” the man snarled. “I’m gonna talk _loud_ , cop! So the whole city will know how you brutally _assaulted_ me! You can start saying goodbye to your badge.”

“As I was saying,” Jason continued, “you have the right to remain silent. But there’s no turning back once you use that right. You get what I mean?”

The man scowled at him with suspicion. Jason flashed him a smile.

“If you talk, you only talk to me about the thing I want to know. You don’t talk to anyone else about anything else. It’ll get me into troubles. And I don’t want troubles so I won’t let you do that,” he spoke patiently. “--In order to keep you silent, I’ll have to put a bullet right between your eyes, and then I’ll call it in, and when I’ve gotten back in the station, I’ll write a report about how I’ve encountered an armed suspect in this place, I announced myself and told the suspect to drop his weapon, but the suspect refused, we tussled, he pointed his weapon at me, showing clear indication of firing his weapon, so, I fired my gun first. It’s all by the book.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Well,” Jason shrugged. “Since you won’t be able to talk anymore, it’s not exactly your word against mine. People will just have to believe what I tell them.”

The man stared at him grimly for a moment, trying to put on a brave face and act like he was without fear. But the fear was inside him, leaking out into his eyes as he was meeting Jason’s gaze.

Eventually, the man started, “What’d you want to know.”

He shot the man an approving smile before asking him where Scarface processed his drugs.

So far, there’s no evidence had been found on the crime scene that was enough to put Wesker under arrest. Jason couldn’t arrest Wesker for murder, and he couldn’t arrest Wesker for what he had done to Roy either.

If the kidnapping was exposed to public, it would hurt Roy’s career way more than it hurt Scarface. The press would come at him like the blood-thirsting hounds they were if he ever came out and made the accusation, digging up every single thing in his past and laid out his entire private life in front of the world.

Also, once he had made the accusation, he would be removed from duties immediately. It didn’t matter that the drugs had been forced into his body, the fact that Roy had taken drugs at one point would put his competency under question. He would have to prove himself to whoever doctor he was appointed to visit that he was both physically and mentally competent before he could be reinstated.

The redhead had enough pain, enough stress put upon him already, he didn’t need this, didn’t deserve any of this. Needless to say that even if Roy was willing to risk his career and get on the witness stand, Wesker’s lawyer would still just use his history with drugs to discredit him and have the charge thrown out.

The only way to get to Wesker was to through the drugs. Jason reckoned.

Once Wesker’s henchman had given him the location he was asking for, Jason called the station, getting some plainclothes officers to go to the address in covertly.

The address checked out. The officers found the drug factory at exactly where the man had said it would be, but there’s no sight of Scarface.

When the officers asked Jason how to process, he told them to stay put and keep the place under strict surveillance until Scarface showed up, then he asked for a police car to get to the warehouse.

Minutes later, a police car arrived.

The uniformed officer raised his eyebrows meaningfully when Jason brought the wounded man to him.

“What happened?” asked the officer while he was taking the man over.

“He fell.”

“Off a cliff?” the officer retorted with an incredulous snort.

Jason disregarded that, leaving the man in the officer’s car and got onto his own bike, trusting the man wouldn’t say anything that he wasn’t supposed to say given now that he had ratted Scarface out, the best chance for him to stay alive was to being in Jason’s good graces.

Once he was back in the station, he went to inform Gordon about the drug factory and got the captain to set up a proper operation.

By the time he arrived at the drug factory by a surveillance van, it was already nine o’clock at night.

It might take hours, or it might take days for Scarface to show up so they could finally catch him with the drugs. Since Jason wouldn’t want to miss the chance of personally apprehending Scarface for the world, he was ready to sit in the surveillance van and wait, watch over the place with the tactical team for as long as it took.

He pulled out his phone after he had sat watching the place for over an hour, figured he should call Roy and tell him he might not be able to come home tonight.

“I was just wondering when you’re going to check in,” started Roy from the other end of the phone. His voice sounded deep and husky, but his tone was light. “--How’s work, honey? You’ve been keeping yourself busy?”

“Well, you did tell me to go do my job.”

In response, Roy let out a heavy, nasal hum. Then he sniffed his nose, pulling away from the phone for a couple of seconds.

The indistinct noises of the man blowing his nose reached Jason’s ear through the phone, along with the mumbling noises the TV was making at a distance.

Roy got back on the phone once he was finished.

“Have you been behaving yourself?” he asked, nonchalantly, casually, as though he was only making some small talk and this wasn’t a legitimate question.

It was as comforting as it was annoying, the fact that his partner just wouldn’t stop worrying about him, even though right now he should’ve just concerned about himself.

It might’ve been easier, if Jason knew it was a sign of distrust, and not something out of solicitude or a sense of loyalty; at least in that way, he could’ve been justifiably angry, and being angry was easy, unlike many other things.

 _No._ For a moment, Jason thought about saying, _I don’t think I have._ _I think I might’ve done something bad_.

He decided against it though, turning to tell Roy about the operation, about everything that had happened today minus the part where he had assaulted Wesker at a restaurant and the part where he had threatened the life of one of his henchmen and might’ve likely to carry out the threat if the man hadn’t acted expectedly.

Roy probably would be pleased if he heard about the first part; but not so much if he knew about that second thing.

He didn’t know if the red-haired detective would be disappointed in him or trying to blame himself for not being able to be there and carry out his role as a safety net; either way, Jason wasn’t inclined to find out.

After Jason was finished putting him up to speed, the detective replied, with remorse in his voice, “Sounds like we’re finally going to catch that son of a bitch. Wish I could be there.”

He wished Roy could be here too.

“So I take it that you’re not coming home tonight?”

He considered for a moment, torn between two desires that were entire different in nature but same as strong.

“No.” Slowly, he gave his answer. “--I don’t think Wesker’s gonna show up any time soon. I should probably just come home and catch some sleep.”

Taking one last look at the drug factory outside, he turned his eyes away and moved up.

Gordon had managed to find a couple of officers who wasn’t occupied at the moment and assigned them into this. Including Montoya and Bullock, everyone in this surveillance van was all ready to perform their duty whenever Scarface decided to show up.

Seeing that he had done enough for one day already, Jason guessed that, as his partner always told him, sometimes he would just need to take a step back and trust his co-workers to do their job.

He called to Montoya, telling the woman he was going home and asked her to keep him posted.

While he was stepping out of the van, Roy let out a curious hum on the phone, appeared to be surprised but not unpleasantly.

“Guess you do want your cuddles after all,” the redhead started in a thoughtful tone. “I think you said something about wanting some cuddles this morning? Or cuddle up with some ginger hotties or something? I don’t really remember, so I just found some cuddles in myself and saved some for you. I was just thinking maybe I could have them back all to myself if you don’t come home and collect them. What a shame.”

Jason returned him an amused snort. The corners of his lips curled up. “I’ll see you at home, idiot.”

“See you at home, blockhead.”

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

He walked into the club, bringing the thief with him as promised. Most of the people inside were either abandoned themselves to drinking or dancing or making out with someone or doing drugs, there’re only a couple of people took notice of the event and turned to watch him curiously while he was dragging a man across the floor.

The boss man was upstairs, drinking with some senior members of his gang. Using both hands to keep his catch from struggling out, he went to the gang directly.

The thief--a fixer who went by the name Snake Eyes Joe—was flung down in front of the boss man, hitting the floor with the side of his body in a dull thud.

The boss man lowered his drink, leaning his heavy body forwards to take a look at Joe, who had now given up the useless struggle and turned into pleading.

Paying no regard to Joe’s plea, the boss man moved his eyes away. “That’s one speedy delivery,” he remarked with approval.

“‘The Speedy Service’,” Roy responded proudly with a smirk, “--The fastest, greatest way to get the work done.”

The boss man nodded and signaled one of his men to pay Roy for his good work. He put the cash into his pocket once he had counted it.

A bottle of beer was handed out to him then, along with the silent invitation to stay. Roy took the beer and found an empty chair next to a woman, sitting aside idly while the boss man was taking care of his business.

With his knees on the ground, Joe begged the boss man invalidly for forgiveness, promised he would pay back all the drug money he had skimmed off in a couple of days.

The sound of his begging ceased and turned into a strained groan of pain when one of the gangsters kicked him hard in the flank. Joe fell over, lying down on the floor for less than a second before the gangster grabbed his hair and forced his head upward. The goon crouched at Joe’s side. His head was pinned, he had no choice but to look up and face the burly figure upon him, groveling in agitation when the boss man explained to him in a deep, patient voice that why stealing from him was a bad idea.

Though the money, sure enough, must be paid back, that alone wouldn’t be enough to cover the debt.

Roy drank his beer quietly, ready to have himself sat there and bear witness of a man getting beaten half to death.

To his surprise, the gangster with strong muscles was told to step aside after he had only given the thief a few punches.

The boss man turned his eyes to Roy, lips curling up into an inviting smile.

“Why don’t you come here and take over, son,” he said, in a tone that, despite how kind it sounded, wasn’t meant to be disobeyed.

The force within his words got Roy to put down his beer and get to his feet slowly, stepping toward the thief who was bending over the floor.

The boss man and his gang all had their eyes on him, waiting to see what he had got. Roy was given a test--an opportunity--to prove himself to these people here; it was the opportunity he had been waiting for, he needed to seize it; at this point, he had no choice but to.

Wanting nothing but to establish a place among these people, Roy reached out a firm hand, yanking up Joe roughly from the ground.

Despite the loud noises, the punches he sent into the man’s stomach were pretty much harmless, or at least it was in the long run.

He struck the man like he meant it, hoping he was putting up a good enough performance. Unfortunately, his performance was deemed to be mediocre in the eyes of the audience.

Some man in the crew got bored and booed at him, telling him to “go harder or go get fucked”.

“You’re hitting like a pussy!” the gangster jeered.

Before any of his friends could laugh at that, the Asian woman Roy had been sitting next to--who was also the only woman on site—drawled in a cold, disgusted voice, “Shut your hole, Moose. If you keep spitting out of your hole like that, I may have to stick a thing or two in it.”

The man twisted his head around to the woman, body tensed up with irritation. The woman met his glare with nothing but contempt on her frame.

Roy stopped and took a glimpse at them, lowering Joe to the floor where he could catch some breath.

In the corners of his eyes, he could see the irate gangster urged forward but cowered back the second the woman dropped her hands off her chest and put down her crossed legs. Her change of position caused the hem of her dark green jacket to fall open, exposing the handgun she kept at the right side of her body and the knife she kept at her left. Roy had no idea how good she was with guns, but rumor had it that Jade Nguyen was quite handy with knifes.

Once the gangster had stepped down with a grunt, her eyes shifted onto Roy. “Go on, cutie,” Jade started mildly. “And do try to hit harder than a pussy, will you?”

All the people around, including the boss man, broke into laughter this time.

Roy shot her a glare. The woman flashed him a toothy smile in response.

He turned back to Joe and went harder then, knocking a bloody tooth right out of the man’s mouth with a vicious blow. The gang cheered at that, so he went on, pushing his personal feeling aside and focusing on the mission at hand.

Soon, the man grew limp and collapsed on the ground.

The violent action accelerated Roy’s heartbeat and thickened his breath. He stayed still for a moment, with his hand still clutching the front of Joe’s clothes and his eyes not quite looking at the man’s face which he didn’t have to look to know was horribly damaged.

Waited till the sick rush of adrenaline drifted away, he let go of the man, wiping the blood off his fists with the edges of his clothes and moved to pick up the bottle of beer he had left on the table.

While a couple of men at the club came in and brought Joe away, Roy finished the beer in two gulps and then found himself a glass of hard liquor.

For several hours, he sat drinking and laughing with the gang; then he got up and hobbled to the restroom, keeping up the cheerful expression right until he entered the restroom door.

There’re two men inside, pressing together over the sink and snorting coke through their noses. The feeling in his stomach got worse as he looked at them. He turned his eyes away.

Once he had emptied his bladder, he moved to the sink, washed his hands and then his face.

Instead of reviving his low spirit, the cold water he had splashed over his face merely succeeded in washing off the last bit of his feigned enthusiasm.

A red-haired person stared at him gloomily on the mirror; Roy stared back for a couple of seconds, while wondering to himself that where Joe might’ve been taken to.

The gang leader would hardly be nice enough to have his people brought Joe to a hospital. If the intel was right and the boss man did have connection with some organ dealers, then poor Joe might’ve been on his way to having his kidney picked off by now.

“ _Do whatever it takes,_ ” they had said, and although Roy would like to believe that what he had been doing was enough already, he knew he was only kidding himself with that. It had only been three months. It was only just a beginning.

It had only been three months and he had already gotten sick of this.

He turned his eyes away from his own scruffy reflection, didn’t come to realize where his gaze landed afterward until his mouth went dry and he found himself feeling thirsty all of a sudden.

One of the junkies lifted his head, staring aimlessly into the mirror after he had snorted another bit of powder up his nose. When their eyes met in the looking glass, the junkie flashed Roy a languid smile.

Roy stood with his hands bracing upon the sink, feeling like there’s a noose--interweave of violence, and crimes, and drugs--around his neck, tightening second by second.

If Dinah was here, she would say that this was the exact type of environment he needed to keep away from. But since he had already signed himself in, there’s no turning back, nor would he want to. He must stick to the end. It was his big chance. It was how he could prove his worth.

 _“But it wouldn’t be enough, would it?”_ What the therapist had once said slipped into his mind. _“--You could do this one thing and you could go on and do many other things, but no accomplishment you ever achieved will be enough, if you just can’t take in the fact that you’ve got nothing to prove.”_

Dinah was wise and incisive, but she had got that wrong; he had everything to prove.

Leaving the restroom, Roy trailed back to the gang and excused himself to the boss soon after.

There’s a bottle of beer sitting untouched on the table, he grabbed it with him on his way out.

A drift of cold air hit him as he staggered through the exit. His car was right outside the club, but even he knew he was way too drunk to drive.

Seeing there’s no cab around, he decided to call one for himself. The cabby said he would be there in fifteen minutes. Roy put down his butt on the sidewalk, tired and intoxicated.

Someone stepped out of the club and into the street. A female voice called to him. He lowered the cigarette he had just lighted from his mouth, twisting his head to the voice.

Behind him, stood the tall, beautiful woman with a head of thick dark hair, a gun, a knife and an attitude.

Jade regarded him with some mild curiosity. “I thought you’re going home.”

“I’m waiting for my ride.”

The woman hummed in response, before turning toward her own car. Roy thought she was going to leave then, but she stopped after taking a few steps away.

“‘Roy’, is it?” she started, facing around slowly. “--You should forget about climbing up and stick to your old job, Roy. Go back selling candies or something.”

“But then I’ll only be making candy money, not real money,” Roy replied.

The fact that a female gangster was giving him a piece of advice about his career choices just seemed kind of funny to him, it made him laugh a little on the inside.

He took a drag of smoke and continued, “What’s wrong with me climbing up anyway? I’m a good climber.”

The woman regarded him with amusement. “You’re cute,” she said. “But it’s obvious that you’re not cut out to be a part of us.”

“How did you figure,” Roy retorted. The grogginess from alcohol was cleared from his brain in an instant. He assessed the woman with heavy eyes, and was relieved to find that her gaze at him was merely ironic, not suspicious.

“If you’d feel sorry for giving someone a beatdown, then you’re nowhere qualified for any high-paying gig,” Jade replied plainly. A wicked smile rose on her face as she added, “Besides, I think you’ll better serve as a lover than a gangster.”

“Shock truth, pretty cat,” Roy returned with a dignified snort, “I’m actually highly qualified in both lover-ing and gangster-ing.”

The woman chuckled. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll give you a ride, lover boy.”

Roy gave her a skeptical look.

“Aren’t you the boss’s gal or something?”

“I’m not his girl,” Jade replied curtly, with a strong note of contempt in her voice. “I work for him, I don’t belong to him.”

“Who do you belong to then.”

“No one.”

After the simple response, the woman walked to her car. Instead of following her, Roy stayed on the sidewalk with the bottle of beer at his feet.

Noted that Roy wasn’t moving, she called out, “You want a ride or not?”

“My mama has warned me about getting into some strange woman’s car,” Roy responded mindlessly while taking a look at the roadway.

There’s a car pulling in from the end of the lane, which Roy had a feeling might be the cab he had been waiting for.

The female gangster snorted at him. “Suit yourself.” She turned to leave.

Snuffed out the cigarette that had almost burnt down to the filter, Roy picked up the bottle of beer and jogged up to her car.

A trace of smile rose on the woman’s face as Roy dropped himself next to her on the passenger seat. Taking a note of her sly smile, he spoke in a solemn voice, raising up the bottle of beer at her in a warning manner, “If you think you can take advantage of me and try anything naughty--know that I won’t be able to fight you because I’m totally shitfaced.”

The woman gave him a look. “You won’t be able to fight me even when you’re sober, cutie.”

The car started once Roy had fastened the seat belt and given Jade the address he had been using these days.

Rolled down the window at his side, Roy rested his elbow upon the sill. The wind swept in at once, lapping lively upon his face while he was drinking his beer.

A small part of a song resounded from his mouth, echoing through the car vaguely and quietly.

The woman glanced at him, eyes shimmering warmly with sincere interest. “What’s that?”

He broke off the singing and took another swig of beer. “Just some song I made with my old band.”

He was getting a sudden nostalgia somehow. It could either be the excessive alcohol consumption, or the smoking, or the loud music from the club, or the drugs he had been surrounded by; he couldn’t help but recalled the old days, which should’ve been making him feel bad, but in truth, it wasn’t. He wasn’t getting any of the strong feelings he used to have got whenever he recalled that part of his life. He was just sort of reminiscing about how much fun he used to have with his old bandmates.

Noticed Jade was intrigued, he tilted his head to face her, singing out the chorus part of the cheesy love song in a voice that was full of theatrical passion.

She laughed at him. “It’s awful.”

Roy shot her a fake glare. “I’ll have you know that this baby was my ticket out of virgin town.”

She laughed louder then. But there’s no malice in the sound of her laughter. It was just a kind, pleasant sound.

The sincerity in her voice mingled with the cool wind. Somehow, the psychic noose around Roy’s neck loosened.

He laughed with her; and for the first time in these past three months, his laughter was natural.

 

***

 

“Still nothing?”

He didn’t give a verbal answer, only the grim look on his face was giving Bullock all the information he needed.

The old detective let out a sigh, dropping his butt on the car seat and putting down the night snack he had brought.

Once he had settled down for the twelve hours shift he was taking after Jason, he pulled out a file under his coat. “Here. Ms. Gordon told me to give it to you, said she couldn’t find your suspect so she did a little background check on her, thought it may give you some clues.”

Jason took over the file, which contained all the information about Jade Nguyen including her birth, her childhood foster care history, a thorough research regarding her adult life in New York and a follow-up report of the five years she had spent in prison.

He read through every material Barbara had gathered up; to his disappointment, there’s nothing he read that could point him to Nguyen’s direction.

His back let out a small crack as he rose up on his feet. Jason stepped out of the van with the file in his hand, leaving Bullock the senior officer to take charge of the operation that had already been going on for two and a half days.

Half an hour later, he reached home, head occupied fully with the thought of Nguyen being on the loose still, and the thought of Scarface, who had been keeping clear from his business for two and a half goddamned days therefore was still on the loose also.

He knew he should’ve had more patience about this. It was important to remain patient during a hunt. Scarface couldn’t have known the police were waiting for him at the factory, since the only way he could find this out was through his henchman, who, after a quick trip to the hospital, had been held in the police station cell for some made-up charges and was more than willing to stay there until he could be sure that no one would come to him and shove a knife into his stomach for opening his big mouth.

At the moment, Scarface was being cautious; but he couldn’t lay low for long. Once he had figured the coast was clear, he would take a tour at the factory. It was only a matter of time before they could catch him in the act. Jason could easily wait for him for weeks. He could even wait longer if that’s how long it took. Time had yet been able to stop him from doing what he was determined to do. As his old friend Talia had once said, time, if used right, would only lead to victory.

Except time was failing him right now. Day in and day out, the factory kept sending more drugs to the streets. The longer it stayed operating the bigger the damage. Although Jason was willing to take down Wesker at all costs, Gordon wasn’t. The captain had already expressed to him this morning that he wanted to throw away the plan and shut down the drug factory immediately, saying, even without Wesker’s presence, they could still gather enough evidence in there to send the crime boss to prison. Jason had asked him for more time, argued that what they might find in the factory would only be circumstances and that their chance of winning a conviction was much smaller that way.

Two more days, that’s all Gordon had given him.

He walked into the apartment with heavy footsteps, face tight and cold with pent-up irritation; and the first thing he took in mind was that Roy wasn’t there.

An uneasiness settled in his stomach. He looked around abruptly, skin crawled with a sudden, unnamed dread as he found the living room empty.

A fragment of old image flew cross his mind eyes; the sound of raining arose from a dusty part of his brain.

The file he had brought with him slipped out of his loose fingers and dropped to the floor. He stood petrified with his senses underwater, until he realized that what he was hearing wasn’t the sound of cold rain rattling harshly against the alley ground but the sound of showering.

He strode to the bathroom then, trying to reach there as soon as possible; the feeling that he was already too late followed him closely, he couldn’t shake it off even when he entered the bathroom and saw a figure behind the shower curtain.

The curtain swooshed open, barely survived the rough pull he had given it and struggling to hold itself from the bar.

Roy, standing naked under the shower, turned his face around, taking a startled look at the curtain then at Jason.

“You must’ve really missed me,” the redhead remarked in a murmur.

His fist unclutched, sliding off the edge of the curtain.

Reached out a hand to turn off the water, Roy moved past him and went to dry himself. The illness had consumed a lot of his weight and the strict diet he was sticking to only seemed to have worsened the matter. It's not that Jason hadn’t noticed it until this moment, but it was until this moment had he finally got a chance to observe Roy’s body thoroughly and take in the drastic change of his shape.

Only several days ago, this red-haired police detective had been a splendid picture of physical heath; now he was the face of sickness, with his muscles withered, his frame hollowed down to his bones. There’re scrapes and bruises all over his body, some of those seemed to be created by accident, some of those had been left on him while he had been captured; although the look of them left a vile taste in Jason’s mouth, they were only minor injuries, which would fade away soon just like all the other small injuries Roy had gotten on duty.

The redhead, highly aware that he was being watched, put on some pants first, reached for a T-shirt afterward and then turned his head to Jason. “Are we good? Or do you want to take a picture,” he asked good-naturedly, before putting on the T-shirt and rolled it down upon his chest.

Jason had got a witty response right on his tongue; but he tossed it away when he caught the sight of bandage. “What’s that?” He reached out a hand.

“Just a cut,” Roy replied and opened his hand, letting Jason see the bandage on his right palm. “--I broke a glass and got cut trying to clean up the pieces. It’s no big.”

Jason stared at him. He scowled in confusion.

“What,” he started slowly. “Do you think—you think I cut myself?”

“Did you?”

Roy twisted his wrist out of Jason’s grip. “I broke a glass. And I got cut trying to clean up the pieces,” he spoke sternly. “Go check the trash bin, Jason Gideon.”

Irritated, he walked out of the bathroom. Jason followed him slowly, feeling somewhat ashamed for overreacting.

Roy halted in the middle of the living room. “Why the hell--” He shook his head crossly with his stiff back to Jason. Then he turned around. “You really think I’ll do that? _In your house?_ ”

He had the right to be mad. He wouldn’t have done that to Jason. He wasn’t cruel, not at all.

There was no reason for Jason to suspect that the man had cut himself on purpose. No reason except that Jason knew for a fact that he was having trouble sleeping, and that once Jason was out his sight, he would put down the smile and stop acting like he wasn’t having the worst of times.

It comforted him, the smiles, the jokes, the banters, it always did; and it comforted Roy too, bringing him comfort.

He looked at Roy, and he wanted to apologize, wanted to get the smile back. But then he noticed the pills.

He went to the coffee table, picked up the bottle of pills and strode back. “Take these,” he said, shoving the Suboxone into Roy’s hand.

“Yeah, I’m trying to cut down on drugs.”

He grabbed Roy by his shoulder, stopping him from turning away. The image of a dead woman lying in an alley hovered upon him. He said, while he was trying to fight back the ominous portrait, “Take it. It’ll help.”

“I said ‘no’.” Roy shrugged off his hand, but only having it returned to his shoulder immediately.

“ _Stop_ —being, so, fucking, stubborn,” Jason gritted, pressing the Suboxone forcefully into Roy’s hand. “You think you’re being tough? You’re not being tough. You’re just making things more difficult for yourself.”

He released Roy’s shoulder, blocking the man with his body while he opened the bottle swiftly and poured out some pills.

The pills were slapped away right before he could successfully push them into Roy’s palm. Jason grabbed his wrist as the pills scattered over the floor, positively furious and ready to do whatever it takes to save his partner from his suffering even if it meant he would have to personally shove the pills down his throat.

He wasn’t aware of that, but his grip was fierce; it was painful enough that Roy let out a vague grunt.

Jason withdraw his hand immediately.

“I don’t--” He swallowed. The belligerence drained away in a snap. Its spell was broken; among the loose, venomous mist, the guilt arose and took over his mind once more.

Disconcerted, he turned around, not heading to leave but just wanted to take a step back—“ _Sometimes you’d just need to take a step back,_ ” the image of the red-haired detective saying that flashed across his mind, tangling with the faded image of a dead woman, with the faded image of the needles that the woman had loved so much that only death could do them apart—He realized, in shock, that he was getting too close, he had let things get in to his head. He needed to take a step back, promptly, before he did something he would badly regret.

Seemed to have taken his sudden retreat the wrong way, Roy grasped at him, clutching his forearm with a strong, clammy hand. “No. No. Wait--” he spurted with urgency, dreaded that Jason was just going to walk away.

 _I’m not going anywhere,_ Jason was about to say. But Roy surged forward as he opened his mouth, pressing his lips against Jason’s forcefully and stated taking action in a swift speed.

His tongue pushed into Jason’s mouth, roving around with great vigor. His grip on Jason loosened. He ran his hands over Jason’s arms, puffing hot air upon Jason’s face as he were squeezing and caressing him in a provocative fashion. His body, thinned down to the bones but still wasn’t altogether without his sound, springy muscles, clung to Jason.

While the sensation made his knees weak and his head dizzy, it was the desperation that truly paralyzed him. Jason was vaguely ashamed for feeling that, but the way his partner kissed him and clung onto him so desperately was exhilarating.

It was a desperate ruse the man was putting up here, to keep Jason from saying anything that he didn’t want to hear, to keep him from walking away.

The man was shaking, either with illness or with the phantom terror. Jason should’ve stopped him, should’ve woken him up, calmed him down and told him that it was only in his head, that there’s nothing he needed to be afraid of because Jason would never leave his side even if someone pointed a gun to his head and demanded him to.

But it was _so_ good, the feeling of being needed, of being wanted so badly by someone that was plenty of good of himself; it was intoxicating.

Instead of put a stop to it and calm Roy down, Jason encouraged it by responding, hands running over from Roy’s back to his hips, while kissing back hungrily, scraping every taste he could get from that luscious mouth.

The sounds that slipped out of Roy’s throat made him sick from wanting. He gave Roy’s hips a hard squeeze, jogging the man forward to him. Roy gave his bottom lip a big noisy suck in response. Then he drew back, pushing Jason to the couch with his torso while his hands rushing down to unbuckle him.

Once he had slumped on the couch, Roy shoved himself between his thighs, spreading them open and pressed his face against Jason’s crotch. Jason hissed and pushed back as Roy nestled to his bulge upon the fabric of his jeans.

After taking in the stiff touch for a moment, the redhead unbuttoned him. A loud groan flew off his throat as he felt the touch of bare hands. Roy guided Jason to his mouth, hands holding firm despite the tremor.

The hot wet mouth clasped around him, shooting a shock of pleasure through his spine. The sound went off once more. Jason threw his head backward, trying his best to sit still while Roy worked his sly tongue and his smart mouth on him with fanatical zeal.

It took the redhead longer than usual to relax his throat and swallow the full length.

The fact that Roy was ill hadn’t entirely slipped his mind; he pushed down his instinct to thrust, keeping his self-possession intact and let Roy work at his own pace despite the incredible pressure he was wrapped in was threatening to shake it all down.

Roy rubbed his hands over Jason while drawing him in and out of his throat, pushing up the warm flow in Jason’s stomach until a gush of heat hit him and his body stiffened.

When Jason poured into his throat, the redhead made these small, strained noises as though he was in ecstasy.

Once he was done emptying himself, Roy released him, sitting down on his heels with his hands resting upon Jason’s knees. His pale face was tired but glimmering with satisfaction. He looked calm. Jason reached out his hands, bringing the redhead up and licked away the remnant fluid on his swollen lips.

The taste of himself was horrible, but it also tasted like Roy, so it was great at the same time.

He pulled the man to him, pushing his tongue into Roy’s mouth to get more taste. The redhead crawled onto the couch with his knees put at the sides of Jason’s body.

Once again, their lips sealed together; they scrapped their tongues about each other’s mouth for all the taste they could get, like a couple of scavengers hunting food for survival.

A spark of desire soon reappeared to the deep of Jason’s stomach. He held out an intent hand to Roy who was hovering upon him. And then he froze.

He thought the man must’ve been as hard as a rock by now, seeing how much he seemed to enjoy the action. But Roy was flaccid.

He pulled back, slightly and slowly, drawing a vague protesting voice out of Roy. The pair of green eyes stretched open, gazing at Jason in daze for a few seconds until he came to realize why Jason had stopped and turned to regard him with concern.

A shade of shame went across his face. Roy screwed his lips in mortification. “I’m—It’s not—It’s the detox. It happens. It’ll pass. Trust me.”

“It’s okay. No need to explain it to me,” Jason quickly replied, bringing the frustrated man back upon him as he started to move away.

He was just about to crack some joke, hoping it would get the redhead to lighten up. But before he could say anything, Roy wrinkled his face and pushed away from Jason all of a sudden. The word “shit” rushed out of his mouth as he turned to leave the couch in a hurry.

Readjusted himself, Jason followed his partner to the bathroom.

Waited till Roy finished puking out everything he had just recently swallowed, he started in a casual voice, “Way to flatter a guy.”

Roy let out a laugh in response. Its sound was coarse but wasn’t harsh on Jason’s ears. “I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you that your cum taste like shit, but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“The most subtlest approach I’ve ever seen,” Jason replied.

Rewarded him with another huff of laughter, the redhead moved up, flushed the toilet and then turned to rinse his mouth.

Jason started again after regarding him for a moment, in a calm tone this time, “Why can’t you just take the damn pills.”

Roy glanced at him on the mirror. “You really don’t let things go, do you?” he said dryly.

Jason shook his head. “If you’re trying to impress me by playing tough, you need to stop.”

“Why does everything have to be about you?” After giving Jason a swift retort, he strolled back to the living room. “--I did it without medication the last time. And I’ll do it the same way this time.”

He got back on the couch and sat with his knees against his chest.

“I need to prove it,” he started quietly as Jason settled down next to him. “I need to prove to myself that I can still do it.”

His eyes turned to Jason, asking for him to understand.

Jason rubbed a hand over his face, not as frustrated as he had been awhile ago, but still quite frustrated.

“I hate this,” he said in a deflated voice. Roy nodded his head agreeably.

“Yeah, quitting drugs hasn’t been considered to be a fun activity very often.”

He let out a dry laugh in response. “No, I mean, this--” He made a loose gesture with his hand. “--Not helping.”

Roy frowned in confusion. “What do you mean ‘not helping’?”

“In the car, after I picked you up, you asked me for help, remember?” Jason replied, shooting a dry look at the redhead. “But I wasn't being very helpful, was I?”

“You picked me up, you showed your support,” the man countered, “You covered up for me. You let me crash in. And you’ve been out working to catch the criminals that I’m useless to catch. How more helpful do you want to be?”

As a way to make his point clear, he told Roy about the latest development of their ambush for Scarface.

Roy drew his brows together thoughtfully once he was finished. “Wait,” he started, looking at Jason with suspicion. “--Is that why you’re getting so testy?”

“Yeah. Maybe,” he let out a sigh and admitted.

After regarding him for a moment, Roy said, “It’s okay. We’ll catch that son of the bitch, one way or another.”

But it wasn’t just Scarface. The setback in catching Scarface was irritating, but it wasn’t just that that nettled him. It was also Nguyen. It was also the fact that, while he should’ve been helping Roy, while he should’ve done something to bring his partner ease and make his situation better, he wasn’t; and to make it worst, he had let the stress get into his head and lost his temper.

He wanted to rid Roy from his drug problem; except he had never learned how to save people from drugs. The last time he had been in this sort of situation, he didn’t save anyone from anything. He had failed, in fact, spectacularly.

He turned his gaze at Roy, taking in every details of the man’s face. There’s nothing similar he could find between this red-haired man and his mother, neither in physics nor psyche; but still, the image of Roy and the image of the woman’s death blended together, crashing into one dire portrait, and he could feel it lurking upon him, sucking away his power and shrank him.

He had become much older since the night he had found the woman died from overdose, and the older he got the bigger he grew.

So why, as of this moment, did he still feel like he was just as powerless as the young boy he had been once?

Tired, he nested his face to the crook of Roy’s neck.

“I thought I’m enough to get you through this.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Then Roy started thoughtfully, “The last time I went through this, I had this woman by my side. She’s calm, and caring, and always knows what to do. You know what’s the big difference between you and her?”

He drew back slightly and looked up.

“She’s a professional, Jay. You’re not,” Roy told him, lips curled up into a small smile. “When someone brought me to her, we’re not as close as we are now. Still, she cared for me. Treated me like a friend and stuck by me closely, but she never forgot to keep her distance. She was trained to deal with these sort of matters. Unlike the people who hadn’t got any training, she understands she must distance herself so things won’t get in to her and mess up her head. Self-detoxing at home is stressful, not just for the recovering party but also the people who support them. As far as I can see, you’re doing okay.”

“You know l was going to shove the pills down your throat, right?”

Roy snorted at him. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

He took a glimpse at Jason, apparently had got a read of something on his face. “It’s alright,” Roy reassured him. “You got crazy, I got crazy. It happens, a lot of times to a lot of people. And it’s not like we’ve never gotten on each other’s nerves.”

When his partner nuzzled up to him, every tension that had left on Jason was stolen away. He thought, with a sense of awe, that it was absurd the redhead still had it in himself to bring him solace and compose him in a situation like this.

“I know you want to help, man,” Roy pecked him lightly in the jaw and said, “And you’ve helped. You can’t imagine how much it means to me that you’re here to support me through this. But you can’t expect you could just take away all the problems and take care everything for me. It’s just rude, and stupid.”

“You're stupid,” he returned mindlessly in a murmur. Roy chuckled at that, sending a small pleasant wave of vibration through the side of his body.

He pulled Roy along as he moved and nested into the corner of the couch; the redhead curled up, adjusted his position a few times until he was snuggling up comfortably to Jason.

Jason wrapped his arms around him. “Tell me about Nguyen,” he pressed his lips against Roy’s head and asked.

It had never seemed that much important to him, what exactly had happened between Roy and the woman who had poisoned him; since what of capital importance was that he had got to put Nguyen in jail.

But now he was curious, mystified by the fact that someone who had knew this person and clearly had been close with him once would have had the heart to bring him such harm.

Roy was silent for a moment.

“The day before I graduated from the academy, someone called me in to the office, said they had an opportunity for me,” he started in a distance voice. “It was an undercover mission. They wanted to put a mole inside this gang in New York and they needed it to be a new face. So they chose me, probably because I’m the most brilliant and also the most roguish looking in my class. They said if I pull this off, I could easily be a lieutenant in a couple of years.”

He puffed out an amused snort and tossed a look at Jason. “—‘Lieutenant Harper’, could you imagine that?”

Jason let out a noncommittal hum in response. “That’s where you met her? The gang?”

“Yeah,” Roy replied. “I was there for six months. The first few months were the worst, I had to do all these stuffs to push my way into the inner circle. And then there’s her, the jade from the inner circle. I know I shouldn’t. It’s messed up. But we…we got involved.”

He paused for a moment. “I can’t pull it through, eventually. I was…I’ve been gathering up all the materials and spending them back to the big guys in charge. It was enough to send everyone in jail for a long time. Everyone including her. They’re scheduling for a raid. And I knew when exactly the date was. And I can’t…I didn’t want to be a part of it. Didn’t want to have to arrest her. So one night, I went to see my handler. I told him that I wanted out. I was going to pull myself out of the mission. And I was…I was going to tell her the truth. I was waiting for the night the raid was scheduled, thinking I could pull her out before it happens. And I was going to tell her everything and I thought—I thought we can still work this out. Like, with the gang’s gone, maybe I could get her to leave her old life behind and start a new one.”

“I’m gonna take a guess and say that didn’t go according to plan,” Jason remarked in a quiet tone, running his fingers gently over Roy’s arms.

“No,” Roy said. “They rescheduled the raid. My handler had been having some concerns about me. He thought I was compromised. The raid happened at the same time I was talking to him. She was with the gang and she was arrested. And I…I didn’t went to see her, not until the court had made its decision. My handler said if I ever visit her during the trial, the defense lawyer might find out about me and use me against the DA somehow. He said I’ve messed up bad enough. I was supposed to stand up in court and testify against every member of the gang, but I was compromised so I was useless, and the best thing I could do as a police officer was to stay away and let them grown-ups finish their job.”

“Your handler sounds like an asshole.”

The redhead let out a huff of laughter. “Yeah, he totally is,” he said.

Another moment of silence, then he finished up the story. “When I finally went to see her and explain everything, she was furious, said she never wants to see my face again. I went back to the prison a couple of times, but I’ve never gotten to see her. And that’s it, that’s the end of us.”

His lips twitched bitterly. “I got back to the NYPD, and I’ve been drinking a lot at that point. I didn’t think it’s gonna be a problem, not at first. It’s just liquor, you know. Not meth, or coke, or heroin. But it’s…it’s a problem. So I spent a few weeks in rehab, and once I took care of my problem, I left New York and eventually ended up in Gotham.”

A thought came across Jason’s head while the story slowly reached its ending. His arms loosened and slide off from his partner. Seeing he was shifting away, Roy looked up at him in confusion.

“What is it?” he sat up and asked.

Instead of answering, Jason got on his feet. He had already figured that Roy and Nguyen used to be a thing, but not until now that he had heard the whole story did he realize what it could mean.

The fact that these two used to be lovers clicked with something Jason had read on the materials Barbara had gathered up.

Found the detailed file he had left on the floor earlier, he brought it back to the couch.

“There’s something you need to know,” he said solemnly, handing out the file to Roy and let the man read for himself.

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

“Where did you…where did you get this,” he started, once he had paged through the file that had far more private information within to be something straight out of the index-pointer system.

He wasn’t a bit interested in how Jason had gotten his hand on it, just figured he should say something. Problem was, he didn’t really know what to say, didn’t even know what to feel. He didn’t know…he _didn’t know_.

He flipped the pages backward to the first medical report that had been noted down by the prison physician few days after he and Jade had had their last conversation in New York. He read it again, going through it word by word, even though what it spoke of wasn’t anything incomprehensible.

“I asked Barbara to track her down. She hasn’t been able to find out where she is, so she did a background check on her,” Jason was saying, and he was barely listening.

A steady hand moved to his shoulder, in a way of calling for his attention and also an expression of comfort. His hold of the edges of the documents slackened. Letting go of the crumpled sheets of paper, he lifted his hand onto the back of Jason’s, holding onto it to draw some of its strength to himself while his other hand returned to riffing through the following pages.

“It’s mine,” he uttered, eventually. “It’s got to be.”

“What do you want to do?”

He moved his eyes away from the pile of documents, opened his mouth and then closed it.

Spending some time to swallow down the lump in his throat, he said, “I haven’t a fucking clue.”

His voice was bleak, laying bare a strong sense of helplessness. He felt like he should’ve come up with a better reply, felt like he should’ve come up with a plan of some sort. But he hadn’t one. His head was spinning, overloaded with all these reports that had recorded everything started from pregnancy in prison to childbirth.

Not seemed to have much thoughts about his poor response, Jason nodded in acknowledgment simply. “We’ll figure this out.” Unlike Roy, his tone was flat and decisive.

He brushed Roy’s shoulder lightly with his fingertips, attempting to ease away the tension that had been gripping upon him in the same way he did awhile ago when Roy had been telling him the story, which Roy now couldn’t help but wondered would it have ended differently if the news that had been brought to him tonight had come to him six years ago.

While he had been trying to drink away the feeling--the acute awareness that he had both failed as a police officer and a lover six years ago, the woman he had loved once who still maintained a place in his heart for all those years had been stranded in the prison he had helped send her in, pregnant with his child.

“ _I let you do this to me--_ ” The look in her eyes when she had said that rose before him.

In a fruitless attempt to escape the strong glare of grief--of betrayal and disappointment—from his memory, Roy pinched his eyes shut, moved his hand away from the back of Jason’s and turned to cover his own mouth. He wasn’t exactly feeling like he was going to throw up again, just getting very very sick with the idea that he had walked away from someone he cared for when he should’ve stuck by her side, no matter how determined she was to shut him out of her life.

It didn’t matter what she had said, didn’t matter that she was no longer feeling any love or need for him. He should’ve been there and done anything he could to help her through her pregnancy.

A gentle squeeze in his shoulder pulled him back. Roy drew up his head and looked around to his partner remotely. He didn’t know how he looked like right now; but Jason was scowling, so he mustn’t be looking good.

“I shouldn’t have brought this up to you right now,” said his partner in an apologetic voice. “I should’ve waited until this is over.”

Roy shook his head, blinking away the loose mist over his eyes.

Breathing in and out a couple of times to ease himself through the turbulence of emotions, he replied, “No. No, it’s fine. I needed to know this.”

With his partner staying close by his side, he lowered his gaze back to the last record sheet, trying persistently to seek out anything more after the delivery, in fear he might have left out something.

It didn’t reveal any more to him than before. There’s nothing more he could find on the childbirth record save for some basic information such as date of birth, gender, weight and health condition.

He had noticed it straightaway that the name of the baby wasn’t the only name that had been left off the record. Throughout the entire stack of documents, the name of the birth father had never been mentioned once.

Apparently, the baby girl Jade had given birth of was born without a father. Seeing Jade was an orphan with no known relatives, Roy could only assume she had given up the baby for adoption.

 _Maybe it’s for the best,_ he thought.

Part of him really wished that Jade would have just told him, or told someone so they would’ve had the baby girl brought to him; but perhaps not having him as her father was exactly how the child could be saved from an ineluctable disappointment.

According to her mother, a disappointment was what he always was; and maybe she was right.

For the past few days, he had been locking the thought of Jade far away from his brain, with conviction that, after what she had done, her opinion on him had mattered no more.

Out of all the things she could’ve done, she had gone for the cruelest and taken away the only real achievement he had gained so far in his entire life. The single one thing he had been truly proud of. He had thought that it had made them even and that they’re done; only now that he realized they weren’t, and every thoughts of her he had been shutting away busted out and came alive to him at once, smacking him with every vivid moment of their entire failed relationship.

Every accusing look she had ever given him, every spiteful word she had ever said that was now speaking volume in his ears; they tangled with the thought of the little girl that he had never known of her existence until this very night and might have never gotten to meet in the future. He was arrested by them, and an urge to escape inevitably infused him.

The firm hand on his shoulder stretched out and wrapped around him, bailing him out of his mental cell with a tug. He leaned in to the side of the warm solid figure, where he felt that it could keep him safe from the storm of emotions and the sudden, roused threat of his own abject want.

With the report on his lap, he sat leaning against Jason silently, while wondering to himself if the baby girl had gone to a nice family after Jade had signed her consent to adoption, if she would ever find out about the truth one day and grow curious about her birth parents. He kind of hoped she would never find out; hoped that she could just live happily with whomever nice couple that had adopted her, and never need to experience the wretched feeling like she was given up.

A sharp ringing shredded the silence and jolted Roy awake to the present.

Someone was calling Jason on his phone.

Cursed vaguely in a murmur, the man shifted away from Roy, searching behind the couch cushion until he found the cellphone that had slipped out of his jeans pocket earlier.

Whoever was calling Jason started talking immediately once he had answered the call. The look on the detective’s face turned grim as he listened in.

Darted a look at Roy, who was regarding him concernedly, he ended the phone call with a curt “got it” and stood up.

“It’s Bullock,” the detective said, pulling out the Glock from his shoulder holster and gave it a quick check. Made sure it was all good, he put the gun back with him, getting to the apartment door in a few strides. “Scarface showed up. I’ve got to go.”

With the report dropped aside, Roy moved up instinctively. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” Jason declined promptly, holding out a stern hand to stop Roy from chasing after him. Roy glared at him. He sent a pointed look at Roy’s hands in turn.

They were, of course, shaking. Roy clenched those poor hands of his into fists.

Lips twisted into a vague snarl, he countered gravely, “You can take away a couple of my fingers and I’m still the damn best shooter in this city.”

“Oh yeah? How about if you’re dead? How good a shot you’re gonna make then?” returned Jason sharply with a snort.

Giving one more look at Roy, his expression softened. “Just stay home and leave this to me. I’m begging you.”

The earnestness in his partner’s voice punctured him. With his arms rigid at his sides, he stood in frustration when Jason walked out the door.

Roy tired to push it away, tried to be rational about it and reminded himself that he had yet fully recovered, and that his partner had only shut him out of the mission to protect him; but the feeling of futility—the feeling that he had gotten left behind because he was of no use--broke loose despite his efforts.

The set of documents on the couch greeted his eyes as he turned around from the door. Now that Jason was gone, he was left entirely alone, with no one else to attend to but himself and what seemed to be the solid proof of his past failures.

Jason had already helped him a lot, but he could only help as much as Dinah could. No matter how much support Roy had been given, at the end of the day, it was still up to him to get himself through this.

It had already been four days since he had escaped his captors and the drugs; he had come so far already, now he just needed to keep doing what he had done once, and then he would be in the clear.

Except now with everything he had found out tonight stirring in his head, he was afraid that he could no longer trust himself to carry him through this.

How could he still remain trust in himself when it seemed that all he could bring off was being a failure and a disappointment to someone?

The cut in his right palm tickled under the bandage. What he had told Jason was true, it was an accident. The thought that he would always be bonded with his sickness and that there’s only one way he could truly set himself free hadn’t come to his mind, not until he had looked down at the broken glasses, and it had only visited him for a brief second.

Roy closed his hands, thoughts sprawled from Jade and the baby to his partner, who he had always taken a pride in being a helpful part of his rehabilitation.

Ever since the day the dark-haired detective had come to the station, Roy had been under the impression that he was needful for the younger man; especially after discovering what the man had gone through—after the Joker case and all that had followed—it seemed that Jason was greatly in need of some help so he could sort out his life and fully move on from the tragedy, and surely, there’s no better person to attend his need than Roy, his appointed partner.

But now he wondered, about just exactly how much time he had left before he was no longer needful for Jason.

Jade had said that she had needed him once, and she had grown to see it to be such a horrible mistake, that, in the end, she would rather go through the pregnancy alone than let him know about their baby.

But Jason was different. So maybe he wouldn’t see it as a mistake and grow to loathe him and call him out for being a fraud and a disappointment as she did; maybe he wouldn’t give him the same look Jade had given him at the visiting area, nor the same look Oliver had given him a decade ago when he had found out what he had been doing in his free time. Maybe the man would just be kind and give Roy a hug goodbye--like most of the people who had come and gone in his life had done--when he realized that since he had gotten everything sorted out, he was no longer in need of Roy, and that as much as he liked him and enjoyed his company, it was time for him to move on.

Roy had never thought of this before, but now that he did, it kind of felt like it was fixed to happen one day.

And no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t fix what was fixed to be; all he could fix was _himself_.

A quiver of yearning seeped into Roy’s bones, quickly possessed him and sent him to running.

Driven solely by the need of getting into somewhere that he could be far away from his own accursed head and have some peace of mind, Roy scraped every cent he could find in the apartment, put on a hoodie and a pair of shoes before heading straight to the exit.

Only seconds later, he snapped awake, rooting in front of the apartment door with one of his hands upon the doorknob while his other one tucked inside the kangaroo pocket, clutching the money he was about to use on drugs in a tight fist.

Roy clenched his eyes shut and bit down on his teeth, expression distorted with shame and agony.

While he was trying to drag himself away from stepping onto the downward path that would lead him to nowhere but failure and destruction, his hand drooped from the door, found the other hand that was grasping the cash and dug its nails into it.

The dull pain helped him regain his focus. Waited till the tremble in his hands subsided, Roy wheeled around with determination.

Seeing he would much rather face the danger against some armed criminals than the danger of being stuck alone in his own head, he decided that he could deal with Jason’s temper later, found the pistol the man had kept under his bed and then headed out to the police operation.

 

***

 

He put on his helmet and mounted his bike. The engine let out a low howl once he had fired it.

The portable warning device was activated; the bike sped along the road, breaking its way deftly through the heavy traffic with flashing light and shrieking siren.

Although most of his attention was focused on hurrying on to the factory, there was still a small part of him wondering if he had made a mistake by leaving Roy at home in such haste.

He felt bad leaving his partner alone when it was clear that the man was deeply shaken by all things he had just learned. Roy was distressed, and in immense need for company. He wanted to give his partner what he needed, but he couldn’t turn away from his own duty; not to mention that he was dead certain Roy wouldn’t have wanted him to either.

As much as he hated to admit it, Roy was right, he couldn’t just take over the entire situation and think that he could fix everything for Roy. He couldn’t give the redhead his peace back, no matter how much he wanted to. All he could give him was the justice he deserved.

The sight of the factory opened up before him. The bike halted in a half turn once it had reached the destination, letting out a sharp, brief screech and leaving friction marks on the ground. It had only taken Jason about fifteen minutes to get to the scene, even his partner had to be impressed by that.

The roundup had started. There’re gunshots ringing out of the factory which was currently blockaded by the police.

Since Gordon hadn’t gotten here yet, Bullock, the old bird with the highest rank around, was calling the shot. Jason went to him.

The suspects inside the factory had refused to surrender after they had been given a warning. The SWAT team that had been sent in minutes ago had yet been able to contain the situation.

Through the radio, Jason learned that Wesker was still inside, being kept away by his henchmen, and that the team officers were having troubles get to him under the heavy fire.

Jason grabbed a bulletproof vest and put it on right away, entering the gunfight with the Glock in his hands.

Bullets were spatting all about the factory. He took the nearest cover next to an officer, spending a moment to get a clear view of some of the enemies in between the gunfire before he moved up and took a couple of shots at them.

While one of the suspects he had aimed at caught a bullet in his chest and fell down, the other one who had managed to get safe returned the fire.

Minutes later, the officer next to Jason was shot by an AP bullet during the battle. He put a hand over the man’s shoulder, keeping the wound pressured as he hailed another man from the team to get here and attend to his teammate.

Once the officer had carried the injured outside, Jason ceased the covering fire, reloaded his gun and took a quick look around.

Finding a man was escorting Wesker to a room, he took a shot at them. It missed.

Given that ranged combat wasn’t his strongest point, he shouted to the officers around to give him some cover, before moving out and went after Wesker and his man swiftly.

After pushing Wesker into what seemed to be an office room, the henchman turned around, trying to keep Jason from getting through the door.

Jason closed in on him before he could fire, whacking the man’s jaw with his elbow.

The sharp blow sent the man in daze and made him stumble. Jason shot him at point-blank range, and then stepped across the body and into the room.

Wesker was hiding behind a desk with his face wrenching in terror. “Ple…please,” he started in a shaking voice.

The door swayed half-closed behind Jason. He stepped forward.

Seeing that his words had gone dead to the detective’s ears, Wesker held up the pistol in his hands and pointed it at Jason. “Please…please don’t make me do this…” With a panicky look on his face, he cocked the gun.

Jason swerved aside as the criminal fired the first shot, keeping himself out of the bullets’ touch with a series of practised movement.

The criminal had fired three shots in total. Jason returned fire once, breaking Wesker off and then rushed upon him, subduing the smaller man in an instance.

Wesker let out a cry as he was bent over the desk with his face pressed down against the top of it, immediately dropped away his own gun and surrendered.

“I…I’m…I’m so sorry,” he sobbed, “Please, please--I don’t want to go to jail…I wasn’t—I’m…I’m just a frontman…a _puppet!_ Please, please…you…you’ve got to understand…It wasn’t—it wasn’t me! It was _Scarface!_ It’s always Scarface—He…he’s the one who’s making me do all this…this…this drugs and everything…and…and _your partner_ —oh God. Oh God I’m _so_ sorry--I didn’t—I told him ‘no’ but he just…he wouldn’t listen--”

Feeling the handgun digging into the back of his head, the man ceased his babbling at once.

Wesker swallowed. “Oh boy.”

Jason stared down at the weeping man, who, according to his medical record, was suffering from severe mental illness.

Apparently, Wesker had dissociative identity disorder. Years ago, when he had been arrested for the first time, he had told the police that, unlike what they had thought, “Scarface” wasn’t actually the alias he used but the man behind the curtain. The police had believed him at the time and gone in search of this secret boss under Wesker’s lead. When the press had discovered that the Scarface the police had tried to catch was actually just an ugly dummy Wesker had kept in his house, they had made a hilarious story about it, and the public had had a blast.

Seeing that no one could be that good at acting, Jason did think it was true, that Wesker, in his own point of view, was only a puppet to another.

He was just a poor, weak-minded psychopath, he wasn’t responsible, just as his lawyer would tell the jury.

The thought of this man here, after committing all the murders and drug dealing and other organized crimes--after what he had done to Jason’s _partner_ —would be sent into a couple of years of vacation in a psychiatric hospital instead of spending the rest of his life in jail brought up a sickness in Jason’s stomach, a roaring in his blood.

With his police gun pressing against the back of Wesker’s head, he toyed with the idea of pulling the trigger for a moment.

It just seemed to be such a nice idea.

“It’s true, isn’t it? It wasn’t really you. It’s Scarface. You’re just his agent,” Jason leaned forward and started thoughtfully. Beneath him, Wesker forced out an agreeable hum. “--But you see, I don’t really care about whether or not you’re crazy and that you and Scarface are two individuals. If the only certain way to get rid of him is to get rid of you…well.”

A small, strained sob fly off Wesker’s mouth as the gun was cocked upon him.

“You need to pay for everything, Wesker,” spoke Jason in a slow voice. “--Lucky for you, I have this partner, and unlike me, he’s a kind person--a damn good police officer who still has plenty of faith in the system. The only reason I get to keep this job is because of him. He believes in me, and thinks I can do better than wasting my life butchering scums like you. And it’d kill me to see him disappointed.”

Decocked the gun, he drew it away from the crime boss and put it back into the holster.

“While I just want to see your brains all over the floor, Detective Harper wants to see you in jail. And this isn’t about me, it’s about _him_. We’re going to give my partner his win.”

Twisted Wesker’s arms behind his back, Jason reached for the handcuffs with one hand while dragging up the criminal from the desk with the other.

He made Wesker listen very carefully, “When your lawyer comes for you, you tell him to shove the insanity plea up his ass and just plead guilty. And then you spend what’s left of your pathetic life in prison. I don’t give one fuck if you’re not strong enough to survive jail without your little friend pulling your strings, I just want you to stay there. And if I ever find out that you’ve gotten out of jail, I _will_ come for you.”

Once he had put the pair of handcuffs on the man, he straightened up, eyes turning toward the door absently.

The red figure that was standing by the room door greeted Jason’s eyes and gave him a shock.

“This is awkward,” started Roy, slowly in a thick voice.

The redhead who was supposed to be at home stood with his hands drooping at his sides. He had a gun in one hand and a bulletproof vest over the red hoodie he was wearing.

Jason glared at him.

“The hell are you doing in here?”

Roy shrugged. “You don’t really think I’m gonna miss the party, do you?” he replied in an easy tone. “--Although, the party is pretty much over when I got here.”

Jason shook his head in exasperation. Of course he wouldn’t listen to him and stay safe.

By the time he brought Wesker out of the room, the gunfight outside had already cooled down. Most of the suspects were subdued by the SWAT team and taken into custody. The ones that remained inside surrendered themselves once they had seen there’s no point in resisting further and were put under arrest immediately.

Before he could walk Wesker out of the factory, his partner stopped him and whispered at his side in hints, “I think you’re forgetting something.”

Jason stared at him blankly. Roy raised his eyebrows at him with suggestion

He left out a sigh and then turned back to the suspect he had in his custody. “Arnold Wesker, you’re under arrest.”

He tossed a reluctant glance at the red-haired detective, to see if he was satisfied. Roy returned him a grin; which was the first grin he had ever made in the recent days, and it was nothing but nice.

“Thanks,” Roy started awhile later, in a strange tone that was all raw and quiet. “What you did--the things you said--it means a lot.”

The soft glint of sentiment in his green eyes gave Jason’s heart a pull.

“Don’t mention it,” he managed in a mutter.

Outside the factory, they found that Gordon, who had taken over command once he had arrived to the scene, was standing nearby.

The captain frowned slightly as he caught the sight of the red-haired detective.

Seeing Gordon was heading toward them, Jason asked, rocking the pair of handcuffs around Wesker's wrists in an offering manner, “You wanna tell Gordon you caught him?”

“Nah, you’re the one who’s doing all the work. It’s your collar, Jaybird, you deserve the job well done.”

“You just say that because you don’t want to write the report, do you?” Jason retorted in a mild voice.

“No. I absolutely don’t. I’m only here for the party, man, not homework,” replied Roy naturally. Then he turned to greet Gordon with a bright smile once the man had stopped before him, “Captain.”

“Harper,” Gordon replied sternly, “The hell have you been up to?”

He stole a look at Jason. “Uh…I’ve been…sick…with flu?” he said after reading Jason’s lips. Gordon was scowling. “No, it’s true. I had flu. That’s why I didn’t come to work. I was definitely not off to nestling with some six-foot tall gorgeous bird that’s just so, _so_ aggressive and commanding and all that I could barely get out of bed.”

Jason’s mouth worked indistinctively with vexation. Not seemed to have noticed that, Gordon swept his sharp gaze up and down upon Roy.

Although the needle marks on the man’s arm were hidden under the sleeve, his lost of weight was nothing but noticeable.

After regarding the redhead for a moment, Gordon, hardly as harsh on his people as the way he talked to them, sighed and told Roy to “summit the damn sick leave form tomorrow” before turning his attention to Jason and his arrestee. “Good job, detective.”

Jason nodded in reply.

A couple of uniformed officers put Wesker into a police car once Jason had turned him over.

Waited till the car had driven away to the police station, he turned to Roy, who, he couldn’t help but noticed, was looking way more better than he had been these couple of days and was much like his old self.

“Now we took care of that, what’s next?”

“Next,” replied Roy slowly, voice calm and clear, “—we find the mother of my child.”

 

 

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

“…‘Cheshire’.”

The smooth voice came behind her unexpectedly, catching her in the middle of leaving. His word was a tad languid but without the muddiness of someone who had just woken up from sleep. Stopped in her tracks to the door, Jade turned her head around, sending a questioning look to the naked man she had left on the bed.

Roy unclosed his eyes, shifting from his side onto his back. The blanket slid off his bare chest as he stretched, unfolding a broad view of his upper body which she very much enjoyed. He lifted an arm and placed it under his head, angling his face toward her. “—That’s what I’m gonna call you,” he continued, a lopsided smirk dangling on his lips.

Curious about his sudden whim, Jade spun around fully. “And why is that?”

“You kind of remind me of it,” Roy replied. “With the way you’re always creeping around and sneaking in and out of my place without a heads-up. You’ve even got that sneaky smile.”

“I’ve got a sneaky smile.” She let out a snort. This was a new one, and she couldn’t say for sure if she found it charming or just a plain folly. “--Can’t you just tell me I’m pretty?”

“I called you pretty. But you never reciprocate.”

“Haven’t I told you you’re cute? All the time?”

“But not pretty,” returned in a reasonable tone, he then flashed Jade another one of his smirk. “Just admit it, Cheshire. It suits you and you love it. You can even use it as your street name, and them bitches will be like, ‘damn, I better watch out for that cat. She sounds wacky’.”

She tried to reel it in, keeping her face blank and her lips in a thin line; but the laughter broke out nevertheless.

She was already fully dressed and about to take her leave. But she guessed that his charm did work well on her--with his good look and his all-too-boyish smirk that was kind of devilish but wasn’t unkind--even his foolishness intrigued her. Jade trailed back to the small bed they had just shared, satisfied to see that his poise faltered as she crept upon him.

Roy stared up at her, meeting her illuminated gaze with a dazed expression.

“So we’re giving each other pet names like we’re real lovers now,” she lowered her head and said, lips brushing the rim of his ear. “I guess if I’m Cheshire, that’ll make you my Alice. But you don’t exactly look like an Alice to me. Annie, maybe. Or Ariel. Or that little red one from the Powerpuff Girls.”

“‘Blossom’, you mean.”

She pulled back to look at him.

“Not that I’ve ever watched it or known much about it,” Roy clarified quickly, which only made her break into a grin. “You’re the one who said Powerpuff Girls!”

She snickered. “‘Blossom’, I love that. It’s very cute.”

“I hate you,” he returned in a grunt. Her hand reached out and traced its sharp nails over his chest muscles, pressing him back against the mattress the moment his chest heaved in response. The way he gazed at her and slid his hands over her legs made her think he might be a liar. “Though I’m confident that I can pull of a bow, let’s not call me that ever. I don’t want it mess up my street cred.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“And in return, you won’t use that silly name on me either?”

“What silly name, Cheshire?”

And there’s that smirk again.

Hummed vaguely in feigned disapproval, Jade bent down, clamping his hips across the blanket with her clothed thighs, her teeth flashing out and gnawing at his mouth viciously in retaliation.

When she pulled back, that accursed smirk of his was melted and absorbed fully by her. She grinned at him, in a mixed sense of triumph and fondness, running a hand over his hair as he lay there with his tattooed arms looping around her and his face bare and vulnerable.

The gentleness in her touch shook him, all visibly. As he drew up and pressed his lips against hers, Jade could feel the quake of passion reverberated through the inside of her body.

There’s something about this young gangster that really appealed to her. Besides the look and the smirk and the silly-talking, there’s something genuine, something nice about him. And nice people just didn’t often exist in her world.

Once the kiss was broken, he pulled back and started in a low voice, “If you’re gonna get going, you better get going now. Can’t have me holding you up all night, can we?”

Jade hummed abstractedly in reply, while wondering how long exactly he might still be able to keep her up. After all the things they had done to each other, she guessed that it probably wouldn’t take long until one of them fell into sleep on this small bed in this cheap little apartment of his.

“I wouldn’t want to stay in this dump even if you pay me to,” Jade replied, after taking a glance around this rat hole of a bedroom. Truly, his place was pathetic. If this was all he could afford by running errands for the big man and peddling crack on the streets, then Roy probably _should_ step up his game and get himself some better gigs.

She drew her fingers over the small blemishes on his left arm. Unlike any of the old white marks she carried on her own body, these self-inflicted wounds of his were barely noticeable; Jade wouldn’t even have caught them if she hadn’t gotten up close.

It was kind of surprising that none of his marks seemed to be freshly made. She knew a lot of fixers were also a heavy user themselves, and it sure would have explained a great deal of his apparent financial problem; but Roy didn’t seem like he was using any sort of drugs at the present days, at least not to her notice.

“How come I’ve never seen you getting stoned,” she asked curiously.

His eyes grew dim. “Let’s just say I have some bad memories about it.”

“But you sell drugs.”

“I do other stuffs too,” he replied. “And money is money.”

That she agreed.

Regarding the man for a moment, she spoke quietly, with her head lolling down, “I should get going.”

“You should,” replied Roy in a whisper, before he moved up and met her lips.

Given that she had always slept better alone, she wasn’t usually inclined to spend the entire night with a lover, let alone one she had only known for a couple of weeks.

She had had enough fun already; she should really just call it a night and head back to her own place. There’s a much larger, much more comfortable bed waiting for her back in her condo. But when Roy's hands drew up and pushed her jacket off her shoulders, she decided that perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if she somehow ended up passing the night on this small bed in this poor little apartment.

She could just leave anytime she wanted; but for now, she would love to stay.

 

***

 

“Are you going to stay?”

The voice woke her up from her short nap. She opened her eyes and took a look over a clump of dark hair that was tickling her face. The blond-haired girl was standing at the door with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

Jade didn’t answer right away, but laid her head back onto the pillow that she and her daughter had been sharing. Unwilling to let go of the sleeping child in her arms this soon, she brushed a thumb over her sweet cheek, and then soothed her puffy hair with a loving hand. While she had a pair of green eyes that reminded Jade all too much of the man who had fathered her, her hair was dark and thick like her.

Nothing hurt her as badly as parting with her daughter, but she did it eventually. Pressed a kiss on the little girl’s forehead, she drew away and moved quietly off the bed.

Not until she had gotten out of the bedroom and closed the door behind her did she reply to Artemis’s question, “It’ll probably be safer if I don’t stay.”

“Safer from what, exactly,” retorted Artemis grimly.

She walked to the kitchen. “I can’t tell you that without putting you into danger. The less you know the better.”

The younger girl glared at her for a moment, before speaking up in a grave voice, “Is it some kind of a joke?”

“Am I grinning?” Jade returned.

After grabbing a can of root beer from the fridge, she settled herself at the kitchen counter, facing front to front with her foster sister while sipping the beverage.

Artemis shook her head, irritated. “I can’t believe you,” she said. “No, wait. I can’t believe _myself_. I knew you’re gonne be up to your old trick again when you said you’re going to Gotham. But I wanted to believe you. How would I be stupid enough to let you drag Li and I into this.”

The can rattled as her hand tightened around it.

It had been almost a week since she had gotten to spend some time with her daughter, and these couple of hours she had just spent with her was the one good thing that had happened lately.

For once, there’s warmth and happiness in her heart. Refused to have all these pleasant feelings spoiled by Artemis and her self-righteous lecture, Jade lifted the root beer and took a gulp, hoping the cold beverage would help keeping her cool.

“I didn’t ask you to come, did I?” remotely, she pointed out. “In fact, I told you to stay home and go back to college. You’re the one who decided to tag along.”

“If I stay home, who’s going to take care of her. You?”

Thanked to Artemis, her appetite was completely ruined. The can of root beer buckled in her tight grip. Jade dropped the unfinished beverage aside, propping her hands behind her against the countertop with her shoulders hanging forward in a combative posture.

“You think I can’t take care of my _own_ daughter?”

“Honestly, I still don’t think you understand what ‘taking care of a child’ means. You said you want to be with her, but this whole time we’re in here, all you do is leaving her with me and running around by yourself doing who knows what.”

A spark of anger flared up in her eyes.

She hadn’t got the _right_ to speak to her like this. Jade’s hands closed around the edges of the kitchen counter. Except, after everything Artemis had done for her and her child, she sort of had. Remembered that, she ground her teeth and forced down the rising fury.

The thought of giving up her child to some complete strangers was unbearable. It made her shudder, just by imagining that her little girl might have to live through what she had lived through; the scars on her body might have been old, but they weren’t nearly old enough that she couldn’t recall the pain or the hard lessons they had taught her.

Since Jade couldn’t raise her child by herself being in jail and Roy was as good as dead to her, she had no choice but to pay off a nurse at the hospital to steal her baby away and have someone bring the little girl to Paula, her old foster mother.

In spite of all of their frictions, there’s no one else Jade could trust to look after her child except her. Paula had been a good mother to Artemis, and she had tried her best with Jade. When she had called the woman and talked to her about the baby, she didn’t know exactly how Paula would’ve reacted though. She had been keeping in touch with Artemis on and off throughout the years, but not until then did she try to make any direct contact with her old foster mother.

Fortunately, Paula’s anger at her didn’t override her good-heartedness. The old woman had been willing to comply with Jade’s request and taken in the child.

This whole time while she had been locked up, Paula and Artemis had been taking good care of her daughter. Given that Paula’s disability had made it hard for her to travel, she had only visited Jade in New York once; but she had Artemis bring the little girl to visit her regularly so she wouldn’t lose touch with her baby.

Over a year ago, Paula had passed away, before Jade had been released from prison. Knowing that someone had to stay home and look after the little girl, Artemis had decided to take a break from college, putting her own life on hold just so she could watch over her sort-of niece.

Jade’s expression softened. “Just give me a couple of days to sort things out. Then you won’t need to worry about her anymore. I’ll take her to a nice country and we’ll start a new life together.”

Her saving had almost gone drained after five years in prison. Although Paula and Artemis had barely touched any of the money she had been sending them in secret, the jail life alone was expensive enough; after all the payoff and expense for arrangements, she had only so little left in her secret bank account. In order to get the life she wanted for herself and her daughter, first she needed the money to get her on her feet, and Gotham had got all the opportunities for an ex-con like her.

There might be some problems at the moment, but she could still work this out. In a couple of days, she would have the money she needed. And once she had made the capital, the rest would come to her. Artemis could continue with her life, and Jade and her daughter could finally stay happily together.

Unconvinced, the blond-haired girl cast down her eyes and started in a bleak voice, “I really want to believe you.”

“Then believe me, sis,” Jade replied earnestly. A smile unfolded on her face. “If you don’t want to go back to your old college, you can even come living with us once we settled.”

Artemis let out a snort. “What am I supposed to do in another country.”

“Who cares? Apply for another college, learn a new language, find a boyfriend—but no redhead, they don’t worth it.”

Her smile widened when she saw the blond’s mouth unclenched and creased into a corresponding smile.

After staring at Jade for a moment, Artemis started, brows furrowing with remaining concerns, “For the kid’s sake, please don’t screw this up.”

Jade reassured her, “I won’t.”

 

***

 

Although his muscles were sore and he was still a bit lightheaded, he felt great. It certainly was satisfying to see the criminals be brought down to justice, and as unsound as it might seem, he was really affected by the way his partner had chosen to handle Scarface and everything he had said to the man.

Admittedly, Jason’s motivation was perhaps still very much ethically questionable, but he had respected and valued him so, he would actually act up to what Roy thought was suitable even though he didn’t necessarily agree.

It just made him feel…genuinely respected, and valued, and appreciated. It made him feel like he was something of great importance, that deserved to be held in such high regard by an excellent person like Jason.

While Gordon was shepherding everyone around to work the crime scene with Bullock assisting him at his side, Roy and Jason stayed behind and took a moment to discuss their next move.

Right now, his former lover was still out there with the stolen drugs, and Roy couldn’t just leave her alone. He needed to find her, and talk to her, so he could finally figure out whatever he should do with her.

Given that it had been almost a week since he had last seen Jade at his house, there was a good chance that the woman had already slipped out of town unnoticed. But Roy was willing to bet that she was still hiding out in the city somewhere. With every police in town looking for her and such, it would be rather difficult for her to flee this city, especially when she was carrying a huge bag of heroin.

Roy was too pumped up to go home, but at the same time, wasn’t filled with enough energy to stay helping with the crime scene or go back to the station with Jason to get some statements out of the suspects.

After a moment of discussion, he parted way with his partner at the factory, decided that he should go do some legwork and see if anyone on the streets had any information about his former lover.

The fact that Barbara hadn't been able to trace down Jade so far could hardly be a surprise to him. The woman had always been one sneaky cat, and given that she had already been in this city for awhile, she must have known her way pretty well at this point. But even though she might have been smart and capable enough to slip pass the electronic surveillance all over the city, Roy doubted that she could manage to hide away from all the eyes and ears on the streets.

She must have come into contact with someone at some point. Roy was about to go out and track her down in the old fashion way, but before he get to that, he remembered there’s something else important he needed to attend to.

There wasn’t much left in his pockets after he had taken a cab to the factory, but it seemed to be just about enough for him to take one more trip.

Using all the remaining money he had scraped up from Jason’s apartment, he got back to his own house.

It was the first time he came back home since he had been kidnapped. Wesker’s men didn't seem to have touched anything when they had slipped in. Much to his relief, everything was in their right place, including his guitar. Roy moved toward it, stroking its body fondly with a hand.

He certainly missed his place. It was a nice place, and he had put in a lot of work and a lot of money to it, so it would be weird if he did not miss it at all. But as much as he loved it and missed it, he couldn’t actually recall that he had been long to be back at home these couple of days.

The house was lovely, but it could seem rather empty sometimes.

He pulled out his phone while turning to find his own wallet.

The kid was just about to finish his shift when Roy called him.

Awhile later, he sat waiting for his young friend to meet him up at the Danny’s which was near to his group home.

As the kid showed up and joined him in the booth, he smiled and passed him the menu in case the kid wanted something more besides the milkshake and the plate of pancakes that were already waiting for him on his side of the table.

Paying little or no regard to neither the menu nor the food Roy had ordered for him, the kid fixed his gaze upon Roy and jumped right to inquiring.

When he was asked to explain what had happened, he was tempted to give the kid some ambiguous answer at first, afraid that the truth might have affected his young sponsee in a negative way. But he decided to stay honest, eventually. Grant deserved to know the reason why he would’ve ditched him right before the meeting and been suddenly out of contact. And although he had the needle marks covered, there’re still too many signs out there that were guaranteed to arouse suspicion. He might as well just explain it himself before the kid got any wrong idea.

He spoke in a calm, neutral voice, didn’t go long with it or dwell on the details, just sketched the situation in a few simple words.

The doubts that had been flashing behind Grant’s gaze shifted as he listened in, and was replaced by a sense of horror. “Shit. That’s terrible. You okay?” he started right after Roy was finished.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about me. I’m doing fine.”

The kid looked at him skeptically.

“Really,” Roy reassured him. “My partner’s been helping me. I’m okay.”

Grant turned into silence for a moment. “How did it feel?” with a strange look in his eyes, he started in a whisper. “--To get stoned after such long time?”

Roy turned to meet his gaze. Realized what kind of question he was asking, the kid wrenched his hands uncomfortably. “Shit. I’m sorry. It's a stupid question--”

“It’s cool,” Roy cut him off with a smile. Then he answered, “It felt amazing, to be honest. It felt…like I loved it, when it hit me, for the first time in a long time. It felt like nothing else matters.”

“You’re not gonna be back at it again, are you?”

“No. Fuck no,” replied Roy swiftly with a laugh. “And you shouldn’t be back at anything either.”

Although they had known each other for quite some time, it hadn’t been until recently that the kid had taken up his advice and sought help for his drug and alcohol problems.

Sitting with his hands holding together on the table, Roy took a moment to study his young friend, who didn’t just grow taller and thicker throughout the years Roy had known him, but also had gotten a lot more healthier, in both body and mind. From being a homeless teenager who would constantly get into troubles to cleaning up his life and now kicking the habit, this used-to-be troublemaker had come a long way since Roy had first met him on the streets and arrested him for vandalism.

The kid had already achieved his five months of sobriety by now, and Roy would hate to see his good work ruined.

“Listen,” he leaned forward to his sponsee and said, “I’m probably still gonna need some time to get everything out of my system, and I know having a sponsor who has drugs in their system is pretty messed up. It must be horrifying, and you may not feel so safe around me right now. I would be most grateful if you could still trust me and stick with me, but if you think it may make it difficult for you to keep yourself on track--even just a little bit--you need to tell me, Grant. I can find you somebody else.”

The kid dropped his eyes, staring at the pancakes in front of him for a couple of seconds. Then he started quietly, “I think it’ll only make things way more difficult for me if I have to start building up trust with someone else all over again.”

He looked up and flashed Roy a smile, before he started to eat his pancakes. “I asked you to be my sponsor was because I trust you. I’m not gonna stop trusting you now just because some assholes doped you up. That’ll be ridiculous.”

Roy returned his smile.

After staying at the restaurant with Grant for about an hour, Roy walked him back to his group home, and then headed to downtown.

There’s a woman standing alone on the street, looking for some customer with a cigarette in her hand. When Roy called out her name and approached her, she turned to face him with a smile.

Roy stayed chatting with the woman for awhile, before showing her a picture of Jade on his phone and asked if she had come into contact with her or known anyone who had.

The woman hadn’t got any information for him; but she agreed to return him a favor and help him out, keep her eyes open and see if anyone knew anything.

Expressed his thanks to the woman, he then turned to seek out all the other friendly faces around the streets.

Unsurprisingly, no one was able to tell him anything yet. But at the very least, his message was spread; his friends on the streets and their friends on the streets would all look into it, with some luck, he might receive a call about Jade in a couple of days. He was optimistic about it.

After taking a trip to the hobo community, he decided to give it a rest and go home. His feet were tried and he was hungry. He had only had a milkshake at the Danny’s, and right now, he felt like he could really use something besides fluids and vegetables.

Thinking that Jason probably had finished his work at the station by now, he called his partner on his phone. It turned out, Jason could use some food too, so they met up awhile later, went to eat something before going home.

 

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

It was a fine house, well apart from the uproar of the city; calm and quiet with big windows that breathed in fresh air and natural light to the living room. There’re decorations of all sizes and sorts lying around at random spots. They’re all colorful and funny-looking, not really seemed to be the sort of things that the house owner would choose to add on to the greenery theme she was clearly going for, but something that would appeal to a child’s taste. Although the childish ornaments were different in style, they still blended in nicely to the otherwise elegant furnishing.

It was kind of a surprise, to see that her habitation wasn’t at all menacing but very much peaceful and homelike. Although Jason had never come across this woman before, he knew her good and well. And from what he knew, Pamela Isley was nothing if not malicious.

For over a decade this woman had been in the game, she had managed to make a fool out of the police and bring serious damage to Gotham City ever so often, that she had made the other old players like Nygma and Cobblepot seem like a couple of dorks in comparison. The red-haired woman had been quite a thorn in Bruce’s side back when the man had been just a lowly detective. Bruce had never said it out loud, but his brows would wrinkle whenever the woman’s name was mentioned; Jason had witnessed it many a time before he had left the manor, and it had told him a lot more about this woman’s character than the media could have done.

He scanned the place with his sharp blue eyes, staying vigilant in spite of how normal and harmless everything seemed. Isley might have retired from the front now a day, but he would have to be a fool to think that it had made her less as a threat as she used to be.

The woman regarded them coldly, asking them one more time about the purpose of their visit.

While Jason was explaining what they were here for, his partner was strolling around idly, studying all the plants and funny decorations inside the house. The way the redhead carried himself was too slackly, even for him. Although he had begun to sleep better and eat more, there’s still a long way to go before he fully restored his heath. As much as he enjoyed having his partner back with him at work, Roy could still use some more rest; except he couldn’t seem to get Roy to take a rest any better than Roy could get him whenever he was recovering from an injury. He guessed it must have been karma.

Just as they expected, Isley denied any knowledge of Nguyen’s circumstances.

“Cut the crap, Ivy. We know you’ve seen her,” Jason walked to the windows and said. Looking outside, there’s a potting shed on the backyard; a small, undistinguished wooden shelter with widows that were cleverly designed to shield everything inside from prying eyes while providing the people within with a good visibility over the area.

Earlier this morning, some kid from the streets had called Roy and told him about this friend he had. When Roy and Jason had gone to see the kid, he had introduced them to a young girl, who had been staying on and off at Isley’s domain after she had heard about the shelter this woman was providing.

Apparently, Isley had had her potting shed opened up to a couple of homeless kids, ever since the first time she had caught some of them breaking into her place one cold evening. Though she had never spoken much to them or invited them to the main house, she would always leave food and supplies on the shed whenever some of these young strays decided to pop in; and in return, they would sometimes help watering her plants when she was away.

The girl Jason and Roy had talked to had been there the night Nguyen had come to visit Isley at her house. Given that Isley didn’t have many visitors, the girl had paid special attention to it once she had caught a sight of a female stranger through the window. The woman had had her face shadowed under a baseball cap; still, she had managed to get a good look of her.

The woman she had described matched Nguyen’s description, and it did make sense for Nguyen to reach out to Isley. Just because Isley had stepped down from the front and adopted a more peaceful life style didn’t mean she was now an honest woman. In fact, Jason and Roy were both entirely sure that she still earned her living by illegal means. The woman had dabbled in the drug business back in the day, and she had many connections. If Nguyen was thinking about getting rid of the drugs she had stolen from Scarface, it was quite likely that she had figured Isley could help.

“I don’t know where you heard this, but I hope you didn’t pay much for this nonsense,” Isley replied in a monotone. “Whoever fed you this intel was lying. I’ve never met this Nguyen woman before in my life.”

Jason shook his head, turning around to face the ex-convict. “How about you tell us the truth and save yourself a trip to the station.”

“You’re going to arrest me?” Isley seemed to be amused. “Unless I’m horribly mistaken, I think you guys need to have a probable cause for that.”

“We can think of a couple of causes,” replied Jason nonchalantly.

Giving no response to that, Isley regarded him for a moment. Then she uttered, all of a sudden, “It’s you, isn’t it?” She moved toward Jason slowly. A heavy fragrance flooded upon him as the woman leaned in and peered at his face. “-- _The cop who killed the Joker_. I knew you looked familiar. They never said who did it, but Harley needed to know, so we looked into it.”

She rocked forward to Jason. Her long, scarlet hair swayed as she tipped her head to the side, waving gently in Jason’s eyes like bushfire.

“Harley was so surprised, when she found out that it wasn’t just any cop, but it was you-- _the Wayne boy_ —who did him in,” she whispered in his ear, “She remembered your name from the old news, and she told me you shouldn’t have been able to walk again after the way he _disabled_ you. But here you are, keeping your feet on the ground and became a law enforcer. Moreover, you’ve done this one thing that not even Bruce could manage to do--you stopped him.”

She drew back slightly to look Jason right in the eye. A smile bloomed on her face.

“I owe you a personal thank you, Detective Todd. Harley had grieved for an entire month, but she would’ve never been free if Jack was still out there somewhere. What you did was truly remarkable. You’ve slayed a monster and therefore, made this world a better place.”

In an appreciative gesture, she held out a hand to his chest. Jason stared at the woman icily, catching her wrist with a rough grip before she could lay her hand on him. There’s a vague stab of pain going up from his knees to his spine; it could either be psychological or because it was going to rain soon. The pain had grown less and less throughout the years, but he could still feel it sometimes on a rainy day.

His partner drifted next to him.

“Alright, break it off, you two,” Roy started impatiently, getting between Jason and Isley and propping himself against Jason’s side. One of his warm hands reached up subtly on Jason’s back, rubbing the spot between his shoulder blade to get his muscles loosen.

All the while, he was saying to Isley, “Quit fooling around, foxy. Just do us a favor and tell us everything you know about Jade, then we’ll be on our way.”

The woman withdrew herself from the two detectives. “You can be on your way now because I have nothing to tell you.”

“Come on,” Roy coaxed. Feeling the tension dissolved under his hand, he stopped and turned to hang his arm loosely over Jason’s shoulders. “Is there really nothing we can do to change your mind? How about if I say pretty please?”

Isley sized him up briefly, not seemed to be at all impressed. “You’re not as cute as you think.”

“Seriously, lady, quit lying to our faces.”

“I don’t know, Roy. I think she’s actually telling the truth this time,” Jason interjected mildly, body easing against his partner’s. Roy looked askance at him. He flashed the man a smirk, before returning his focus on the woman.

Looking pointedly around her indoor garden, he started with suggestion, “You’ve got a lot of plants in here. I’m no expert, but some of them seem really rare and exotic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them on the market.” He turned to Roy then. “Shouldn’t there be like, a federal regulation about the importation of rare and exotic plants?”

“I dunno, man. I’m just a cop. That’s a question you need to ask the USDA.”

Jason nodded. “Maybe I will.” Isley was staring grimly at him. He flicked the woman a smile. “I bet the guys from the USDA wouldn’t mind coming down in here and do a little investigation, to see if there’s anything that requires a permit or something. I just hope they won’t mess up any of your beautiful plants when they poke around.”

“That’s low,” remarked Isley remotely. “I always wonder what kind of person could’ve slayed that monster, now I know it isn’t a knight of honor.”

“That’s harsh, ma’am,” Jason replied. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but that kind of really hurts my feeling.”

The woman’s lips twitched up into a sneer. “--Get out of my house.”

And he was officially stumped.

He knew it was unlikely that Isley would give in to such petty threat, but since he and Roy couldn’t actually haul the woman to the police station, he had to at least give this a try.

Criminals usually tended to talk when he pressed; only Isley wasn’t just any criminal, and his hands were very much tied at the moment. He could do nothing to her except throwing around a couple of empty threats.

The young girl who had informed them about Isley and Nguyen’s meet-up had made them promise that the red-haired woman wouldn’t have gotten into trouble before telling them anything. Although he had no problem cooking things up and making Isley’s life difficult to get what he wanted, he had to leave her alone, if only just for the young girl’s sake.

He glanced around to his partner, hoping Roy could come up with a better strategy.

Something seemed to have caught Roy’s eyes. He moved from Jason’s side to a wooden cabinet. Inside, there’s a picture of Isley and the notorious Harleen Quinzel. The two women had their heads pressed together in the picture; while Harley was making a funny face to the camera, Isley was looking at her with an affectionate smile.

After regarding the picture for a moment, Roy started in thought, “You guys are close?”

Isley didn’t reply to his question, just staring across him to the picture with a pensive frown; which seemed to be all the answers Roy needed.

“She’s still in Arkham for that bank robbery, isn’t she?” he asked, rhetorically. “You ever went to see her?”

“Only every twice a week, no longer than thirty minutes each time,” she responded in a sardonic tone. “—Unless she’s gotten into troubles with the orderlies, then she’d be sedated and have to stay in her room.”

“What did she do to the orderlies?”

“Nothing,” she said. “…It’s just a prank.”

Roy nodded his head in acknowledgement. “It must’ve been hard, being separated from her,” he said. “—This Jade woman we’re asking you about? I’ve actually been in a similar situation with her before. Although I’ve only gotten to see her once when she was locked up and she hates my guts, but I think I kind of understand how you feel.”

“That’s nice and all, but I still have nothing to tell you.”

“Not even if we help you out with Harley?”

His mouth curled up into a friendly smile as the woman turned to stare directly at his face.

“I can’t promise you we can definitely make it happen, but if you help us out with Jade, we can try and see if there’s any way to get Harley an early release or something.”

It was a nice try. But surely, she knew neither Roy nor Jason had enough power or influences in town to arrange such a thing. Jason stood by and watched them, with little expectation for it to work.

To his surprise, Isley actually went into contemplative silence for a moment.

“It’s a long shot, but it might still worth a try,” she started after consideration.

“So we have a deal?”

“Not so fast,” she said. “You can’t expect me to start telling you things just because you offer me something you may or may not be able to deliver in the future. I need to get something out of this first. If you two could manage to get me a full hour alone with Harley today—in perfect privacy—then maybe we could talk.”

Roy smirked. “That’s easy,” he said with confidence, before motioning to Jason. “You heard her, Jaybird. So go do something and get an hour of alone time for the lady and her girlfriend.”

 

***

 

Making sure every security camera was turned off, they left the two women alone in the room and went to wait outside at the corridor.

After ten minutes of standing by and waiting, Roy got bored and started to wonder what those women were doing behind the closed door.

“You think they’re having sex in there?”

“They better be,” his partner grumbled. “I didn’t just call Bruce and set this up so they can spend an hour playing chess.”

Roy let out an amused snort in response.

The asylum had got a strict policy about paying visit to certain patients, and it required far more than just money or a couple of police badges to get someone to bend the rules and make an exception for them. It called for some particular connections that Roy didn’t have. Certainly, he had made a lot of friends in this city throughout the years, but Arkham Asylum was a special place that didn’t answer to a lot of people.

It would have to take someone in an exalted position to get Ivy what she had asked for. Someone who didn’t just have great wealth but also great influences over the city; some really powerful figure from a highly privileged background, like Commissioner Wayne, whose family had been deeply involved in building up this hospital and had been financing it for decades.

Jason didn’t seem to be too delighted with the idea that he had to call the commissioner and ask the man for a favor. As far as Roy knew, the last time Jason and his adopted father had conversed directly with each other, it had been about the Joker; and they hadn’t been doing as much as looking right into the other’s face since then.

It’s not that Roy couldn’t have saved his partner the agony and talked to the commissioner himself; but for all these years he had been in the GCPD, he had barely spoken to the man about anything that wasn’t work-related, and when he did, he had this awful tendency to speaking out of term that it was quite surprising he had yet been sent off to highway patrol.

Even though Jason was hardly in a good term with Bruce, they were still very much legally related; so his chance of getting the man to comply with their request was still better than Roy’s.

As reluctant as he might have felt, Jason had pulled out his phone and called the commissioner’s office. Roy wasn’t sure what the two men had said on the phone. Jason had made a point of standing aside during the phone call.

Seeing that he did manage to convince the man to pull some strings for them, Roy guessed that the conversation mustn’t be too bad, despite Jason’s obvious displeasure.

After a moment of thought, he commented, “If you ask me, I think it’s time for you two to start talking to each other anyway. You both work at the police station. It’s not like you can avoid talking to each other forever.”

“That’s why I didn’t ask you,” replied Jason in a blunt voice, looking utterly unapproachable with the way he stood against the wall, his face stiff and his arms crossing over his chest in a forbidding manner.

Regardless of the force field the man was projecting around himself, Roy drew to his side. “Again with the cold shoulder? But I’m just starting to think you like me,” he remarked with a dramatic sigh, leaning lightly against Jason’s shoulder in a way of registering friendliness and also because he was tired after staying out for an entire morning.

In response, Jason let out a snort; but his manner did grow relaxed. “I like you better when you don’t go around offering to free a convicted felon,” he said, tone laced with a note of irony. “--Isley isn’t going to change her mind and start telling us everything just because we got her some intimate time with her crazy ass girlfriend. She’s still going to hold you to your offer, you know.”

“I know.”

“So what were you thinking? Are you really going to try and get Harley Quinn back on the streets? Do you even know how to do that?”

Roy shrugged and replied jokingly, “Maybe the commissioner could help? I mean, he’s the commissioner, and he basically owns this hospital, so.”

“So you’re going to go to his office and ask him to set free a convicted felon?” his partner retorted. “That sounds fun. I’ll like to see how it goes.”

“If you aren’t so damn pretty,” Roy returned in a grumble. “--We have to offer Ivy something if we want her help. And if that’s what she wants, that’s what she wants. We can ask around and see what we can do, and I do tell her the result isn’t guaranteed.”

“You really don’t think things through, do you?” Jason chided, but not quite harshly.

Eyes staring sideway at Roy, he turned into thought for a moment.

“It isn’t exactly a good deal,” he said, “Harley may still be locked up in here for a long time even if she does cooperate with us. You really think she’ll sell out your ex for this?”

“I know I will,” Roy replied. “Sure, it’s a horrible deal, but it’s not like she actually has any reason to protect Jade. She’s probably just in it for the money. And if she does care about Harley and miss her as much as I thought, then she’s not going to pass up the chance to have her back for some dough, even if the chance is real small.”

Giving Roy a vague hum in reply, he then shifted his eyes away.

“You ever think about getting her back?”

Surprised by the sudden question, Roy looked around. His partner was surveying the corridor idly, showing Roy nothing but his impassive profile.

“When I was drunk,” he answered quietly. And he hadn’t had a single drink for years.

There had been a time he had kept wondering, how it would have been, if everything was just a bit different. If he and Jade had met at a different time under different circumstances. If their relationship wasn’t based on lies. If she wasn’t a criminal. If he wasn’t a cop. But there’s no way out in theses wonderings; all they were going to lead him was further and further into the swamp.

What he had lost would not come back to him. He had long since learned how to accept this hard truth. By the time he had decided to leave New York, he had already come to term with the fact that there’s no going back. And now, after everything, he would have to be deranged to ever think about getting back with her.

Jade was never going to forgive him for what he had done, and to be honest, he didn’t think he was nearly big enough to ever forget what she had done either. Whatever trust there used to have between them was far beyond broken. Even though they could somehow put aside all the hurt and betrayal and find their way to reconciliation, his feelings had already changed; needless to say that getting back to her would mean he would have to leave where he currently was, which might not always be all that easy and peaceful—in fact, it could be quite challenging at times--but it was his place now and he loved it in here. He wouldn’t trade it up for the world.

He regarded his partner musingly. “Tell you what,” he smirked. “If you ever end up in prison, I’ll totally cut a deal and sell out some random person for you.”

“Bold of you to think that I’ll ever leave any evidence behind and get myself convicted,” Jason replied, before tilting his face to Roy. The corner of his lips curled up into a wry smile. “--If you ever went to prison, I’ll remember to visit you.”

“Every twice a week?”

“Every twice a week.”

As Roy chuckled with genuine amusement, the solemnity fell off Jason’s face and gave way to a soft glow. His smile widened in a way that really smoothened his features and showed how young he actually was behind the seasoned maturity; and he was giving out this certain laugh that was all warm and hearty, it never failed to make something inside Roy bubbled.

Once the one hour limit had passed, a male and a female orderly showed up and headed straight to the room. “--Go away, you ew-angelists! I don’t wanna talk to you about Mr. J!” Harley yelled out briskly from the inside when she heard the knock at the door. The orderlies entered the room with sheer indifference.

Looking across the open door, Roy could see the two women were standing closely together with their hands entangled.

“Please step aside, ma’am,” said the male orderly firmly, while his female colleague went to take Harley by her shoulder and get her to move along.

Instead of stepping away, Ivy rooted to the spot, hands tightening around Harley’s.

Seeing that she was unresponsive to the request, the male orderly stepped up in a warning fashion. While her posture remained unchanged, her face grew significantly hardened at his approach. Roy watched it with rising concern as Ivy turned to stare at the man. A glimpse of the old Pamela Isley—the cruel, ruthless criminal who would stop at nothing to achieve her ends—stood out inside her clouded eyes, and it really made Roy worry if she was going to do something.

With the same concern in mind, Jason unfolded his arms and lowered them to the sides of his body, changing his stance from a nonchalant kind to an alert one.

Thankfully, the tension was shortly broken. Everyone else in the room was all arrested by surprise when Harley moved up all of a sudden.

With her fingers locked in Ivy’s, she disengaged herself from the female orderly’s hold, and went to drag the red-haired woman into a long, mad kiss that even Roy and Jason raised an eyebrow at.

When it was over, she nuzzled against Ivy’s face. “I’m _so_ happy to see you doing so good with this retirement thing,” said Harley, voice sounding uncharacteristically sensible. “I’m really sorry I can’t seem to be able to get a hold of it and be the good girl like we promised.”

“Harleen--”

“No, Pam, listen,” she proceeded stoutly, “I wanna go on living the wild life, I don’t ever wanna retire. But you want to, and I want you, more than I want funs. So when I get out, I’mma try it again. I’mma do it right and give you that boring old-people life you want. Just you wait, Pam-a-lamb.”

“You know I’ll be waiting for you no matter what,” Ivy replied in the softest of whispers. “--See you next time, my little psycho.” Giving Harley one last kiss on the chin, she loosened her hands. The female orderly stepped forward and brought the inmate away.

Before she was led out of the room, Harley stopped short, eyes staring out at Jason who was standing opposite to her at the door.

“Hey, Deadly Hero, I’ve got a question for ya,” she started crisply. “--Did you feel good watching my old Puddin' die?”

Without anything changed in his countenance, Jason replied, “Very.”

She nodded her head. “I thought so.”

The female orderly nudged her out of the room. She said to both Jason and Roy while starting to get moving, “It was nice meeting you two, Hot Fuzzies!”

Once Harley had exited the room with the orderlies, Ivy too stepped out, eyes following her all the way down the corridor.

Awhile later, the red-haired woman was back inside her car at the parking lot. Roy and Jason were sitting behind her in the backseats.

She stared at Roy’s face in the rear-view mirror. “If you break our deal--”

“We’ll see what what we can do,” Roy reassured her. “But first thing first. Tell us what you know about Jade.”

 

 

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

Using up all three boxes of ammunition he had brought from the counter, he put down the gun and then pressed the control switch at his side to get the cardboard to move in.

His score seemed to be as good as it had been the last time, maybe even higher; still, he wouldn’t care to make a wager with his partner on a game of target practice, or any sort of shooting games, in fact.

Back at the beginning of their partnership, there had been a time Jason had continuously engaged into all sorts of little games with his detective partner, in an attempt to level the score after the man had hustled him in a game of target practice at his first week in the police station; until he had grown to see that the redhead truly was gifted in marksmanship and had accepted that he could never beat Roy on his own game, so instead, he had turned to get his revenge on a boxing practice. It had been just as satisfying.

Not feeling up to some more target practice, Jason threw away the target sheets and turned to the next stall.

It had been almost an hour since they had gotten into the shooting range, and Roy still had got plenty of rounds left on his shelf. The redhead had pretty much given away all of his cash at the counter and gotten himself a lot more cartridges than he would usually get for a single practice.

When Jason found him at his stall, he was half way from emptying the fifth box of ammunition. Jason stood behind and watched him while he fired at the target with undivided concentration.

Emptying the magazine in one go, the red-haired detective flipped the cylinder open with a flick of the wrist, reloaded the gun swiftly and continued firing in a fixed rhythm.

Never once did Roy take a moment of break and lower his arms for more than a few seconds. His hands must have been tired from keeping up the shooting position; still, he held them firm and steady around the pistol, regardless of what effect the strain might bring on his hand muscles afterward.

Another hour had passed. Finally, the ammunition had run out. Roy put down the Glock on the shelf and unflexed his fingers slowly, one hand drooping down at the side of his body while the other one lying over the pistol.

“Feeling better?” Jason started, once Roy had removed the earmuffs. The redhead shrugged in reply.

Staring blankly down the shooting lane for a moment, Roy packed up his gun and turned to remove the target sheet from the cardboard. “Let’s go to the bar,” he said, throwing away the target sheet without looking.

Returned the borrowed equipment to the counter, they took the elevator up from the basement to the ground floor.

The old police bar was only a ten-minute walk away from the station. Awhile later, when Jason followed his partner into the bar, he saw that there were a couple of familiar faces inside.

It was the same in here as it had been earlier in the police station; soon as the people noticed him and Roy, they all turned to give them a funny look. Even though not too many officers had been aware of Roy’s missing, his sudden change of shape still drew him a lot of attention.

One of the off-duty officers called to Roy as he walked by. Jason could remember seeing this man in the bar with Bullock and some other old boozers quite frequently. The man was an okay cop, not horrible to deal with, but he did tend to be obnoxious after a couple of drinks.

With a beer in his hand, the man spoke to the red-haired detective in a joking tone, “S’up with you, Roy? You’ve got to have at least knocked off ten pounds since the last time I saw you. Have you been cutting down junk or taking too much?”

“You’re not getting any diet tips out of me, old fart. I’m still looking forward to the day when your wife finally dumps your sorry fat ass,” Roy replied flatly. His expression was plain and his reaction wasn’t really that much different than normal; only his voice was lacking the usual sense of humor. It had been a rough night, and he wasn’t in the mood for socializing.

Seeing Roy walk away, the old officer scowled and turned to Jason in confusion. “What’s up with him?”

“Shut up and go drink your beer,” Jason replied without looking around.

Once he and Roy had settled in a quiet corner at the bar counter, the bartender came up to them.

Instead of doing what he always did and got himself something that was nonalcoholic, Roy ordered himself a shot of whiskey.

Soon, the drink was brought in. Jason asked as he picked up the glass, “You’re going to drink that?” He regarded his partner carefully. Given how much Roy liked to be around people, he often hung out in the bar with some co-workers and such. It wasn’t unusual for him to be surrounded with drinks, but not once Jason had seen him holding one in his hand.

Roy didn’t look at him, just keeping his eyes on the liquor. “Are you going to stop me if I say yes?”

“It feels like I should.”

Roy nodded his head abstractedly. “I’m not going to drink it,” he said. “I mean, I kind of want to, but I’m not gonna.”

“Then why even get it?”

“So I could look at it and know that I can have it staring right into my face and not drink it?”

“This can’t be healthy,” remarked Jason in a dry voice. But he guessed that it probably wasn’t too much different than being in the shooting range for Roy. It was just another way to testify his capability and to feel the sense of control. Although Jason would rather go hit the boxing gym, or in some extreme case, go get himself a fight when his head was a mess, Roy had his own way.

“It's a lot more healthier and safer than doing it with the white stuff. Not that I want some of those,” replied Roy mildly. “--And besides, you’re here, so what’s the danger.”

There’s something of great significance he felt within Roy’s words. Since Jason couldn’t think of any word that might be able to match up with what he felt, he didn’t respond by word, just reached out his hand and put it over the one hand Roy was laying idly on the bar counter. People were going to crack tons of jokes about it if they saw them. But it would only be a problem if he cared about their opinions at all.

Roy moved his hand around to link with Jason’s.

With his eyes on the drink, he spoke in an undertone, “Did I do the right thing?”

“You did what you had to do.”

“But was it the right thing?” He faced around to Jason then, searching for the answer that he couldn’t seem to find within himself.

 

***

 

After learning everything from Ivy, they got her to call Jade and set up a meeting with the woman. They listened to the entire phone call, in case the redhead had a sudden change of mind and decided to turn on them.

Jade agreed to meet her up at night in a junkyard. They arrived at the meeting spot an hour above schedule, taking some time to survey the area and review the plan with Ivy. Once everything was settled, Roy and Jason went out of sight, leaving Ivy alone at her own car.

There’s no one around save for the three of them. Roy didn’t call for reinforcement, not just because Ivy only agreed to do this if she didn’t need to be around more cops, but also because he didn’t want to make it an official operation.

Exactly one hour later, a car rolled into the junkyard and stopped slowly before Ivy’s.

“You brought the stuff?” Ivy started, once the dark-haired woman had stepped outside the car. Her manner was neutral, not seemed to be at all concerned by the fact that Jade had got a gun in her hand.

Using the hand she was holding the gun with, Jade waved for Ivy to come closer. Ivy stepped toward her then. Roy couldn’t quite see it from his spot, but surely, she was showing Ivy the bag of drugs inside her own car.

Once Ivy had finished checking, she shut the car door and returned the question, “Where’s your guy?”

“He’s on his way,” Ivy replied. “Let me just give him a call.” She reached for her phone and turned around.

Jade caught her by the wrist. “You’re not trying to screw me up, are you?”

“Please,” Ivy brushed her off lightly.

Freeing herself from Jade’s hold, she carried on with the plan, holding up her cellphone and stepping aside naturally while she was pretending to give someone a call.

With the police gun in his hand, Roy watched the two women closely, waiting for Ivy to get clear so he and Jason could reveal themselves without endangering her.

Jade looked around with her sharp eyes. While Roy hoped that no one would get hurt in this, there’s this look on her face that he could easily recognize, and it spoke clearly that someone _was_ going to get hurt tonight.

She couldn’t have caught sight of them, but she must have sensed something. “Crap.” Roy stepped up immediately the second he saw her move. His partner was right behind him, moving his own gun at Jade’s direction.

The man didn’t fire a shot though. Seeing that Jade had Ivy seized right in front of her, there’s no way for Jason to take a shot without injuring Ivy. He stopped and stole a look at Roy, then slowly lowered his weapon.

Jade glanced at them, a sneer rose on her lips. “I can get it if you sell me out to Wesker or some other crooks, but the cops?” she said to Ivy disapprovingly, keeping her still with a knife upon her neck.

“Let her go, Jade,” Roy told her, gun pointing ahead with clear warning.

She regarded him with a thoughtful stare. “You seem to have thinned down quite a lot in just a few days.”

“Yeah, thanks to you,” he returned dryly.

“What? You mean the drug? It wasn’t personal,” she said. Roy stared at her grimly. “--Alright, fine, maybe it _was_ a little bit personal. But what were you expecting? You’re going to bring me in, Roy. I had got to hold you down somehow. And it’s not like it’s going to kill you. It was only supposed to put you out for awhile.”

Except it wasn’t just something that would pass off in a while.

Every second he had been kept in captivity, every time Wesker’s men had injected him with poison—every God-blasted moment the rush had cruised through his veins--he could feel himself slipping further and further down the pit, to which he had made a vow to himself he would never return, and yet, in his weakest moment, it did somehow feel like it was where he belonged.

If he hadn’t broken himself out this quickly, he might have just never gotten out. There’s no doubt that his partner would have found him eventually, but by then, his sense of self might’ve already been lost, and he might have never restored to who he had come to be.

It wouldn’t even make much difference if Wesker had never gotten to him. The damage had been done the second Jade had drugged him.

Although his symptoms had subsided and he was considerably improved in a material way, he still needed to talk to Dinah and pay regular visit to the local addiction counsellor for weeks or even months from now on. It only took Jade a second to poison him, but it was going to take him a long time to get back to his former state.

“You know why I can’t take drug,” he replied in a deep voice. “--I told you that, remember?”

The glint in her eyes revealed that she did remember. Everything he had said, at a tender moment in one quiet night where they had laid peacefully together; just the two of them, taking a short break from the world. Every dirty little secret about himself that he had never dared to share with even his closest friends. Every little secret save for the obvious one.

She averted her gaze. “Just stay out of my way,” she said, dragging Ivy along with her as she backstepped toward her own car.

“Stop,” Roy called out sternly, but she wasn’t listening.

Her hold upon Ivy loosened. She lowered the knife from Ivy’s neck and raised the gun in her other hand instead. Keeping Ivy at bay with a gun to her head, she reached for the car door.

Roy bit on his teeth and took a precise aim. The bullet broke into the small space between Jade’s hand and the car door, forcing her to draw back and also roused her. She glared around madly at Roy, moving the gun away from Ivy’s head to his direction.

There’s a brief moment before she could return the knife to Ivy’s neck and hold her under hostage again. While her attention was drawn by Roy, Jason, who had been standing by watchfully, slunk up, attempting to catch that moment to subdue her and get Ivy out of the way.

Since they couldn’t really trust Ivy and it would be extremely dangerous if they had sent out someone who had such long felony record to be in direct contact with another hardened criminal with any sort of weapon, Roy and Jason had made sure that the red-haired woman hadn’t got any weapon on her before sending her to the meet up. But even though Ivy was armless, she was still more than capable to protect herself from danger.

As Jade was busy dodging the attack from the detective, Ivy bumped her head against her captor and broke out of Jade’s hold.

Soon as she had regained her balance, Jade went after the red-haired woman with the knife. Jason put her off with a kick in her arm, allowing Ivy to slip away and return to her own car safely with no more than just a couple of scratches on her skin.

Seeing that Ivy had gotten away already, Jade turned all of her attention to the dark-haired detective.

The knife moved deftly in her hand, leaving a cut on Jason’s jacket and driving him back. “--Watch it, lady,” Jason was saying, “I like my jacket.”

Jade didn’t bother herself with a reply.

Soon as the man moved out of her arm range, she raised her gun. “Jade!” Roy cried out, holding his own gun firmly in his hands. “--Don’t do this! It doesn’t need to be like this!”

Again, she refused to listen.

A groan escaped her throat as the bullet from Roy’s gun grazed her in the wrist. Her fingers grew limp and lost hold of the weapon.

She reached down for the gun immediately. Another bullet flew across the air, hitting the ground right before her hand and making her freeze.

Keeping his gun forward, Roy drew to her with heavy footsteps. Meanwhile, Jason was standing around in a shooting position.

Hands drooping stiff at her sides, she took a sideway glimpse at Jason before turning to fasten her gaze on Roy. Though she still had the knife in her hand, it was not going to be of much use now that she was seized at gunpoint.

“I should’ve just killed you.” Once Roy had stopped before her, she uttered, a thin veil of resentment covering her tone, “The moment you refused to help me--I know you’re going to get in my way. I should’ve just killed you then and let Wesker take the fall. But I didn’t. I let you remain to be my weakness.”

“I _was_ going to help you,” Roy returned with vexation. “I cared for you, Jade. Even knowing everything you’ve done, I still cared for you. And I would’ve been there for you if you’d just tell me about the baby.”

Instantly, her eyes widened in wonder. “You knew.”

Roy shook his head. The corner of his mouth twitched drearily. “You’re really going to hide this away from me forever, aren’t you?”

Looking away from his dismal stare, she gazed down at the ground with a strange expression. Then again, she looked up.

With the hard, contentious look returned to her sharp features, she spoke clearly, “You might’ve fathered her but you’re no way her dad. And if you want what’s best for her, you’ll get out of my way. Just let me go so she could be with her mother.”

“What do you mean?” Roy scowled.

“She’s my child, Roy. She’ll always be with me,” she said, voice cold and final. “I didn’t let jail break us apart then and I won’t let you break us apart now.”

It couldn’t be. He glared at her, shocked by what her words were implying. The baby had been taken away, right after the delivery. It was how it should have been; considering her circumstances, there’s no way anyone would let her keep the child. She had got to be lying. And yet, he could see that she wasn’t.

Somehow, she had found a way to keep her. Their child.

He couldn’t help but lowered his weapon slightly, all dull and distressed. “Where--where is she?”

Jade shook her head, mouth slit into a taunting sneer. “You would’ve gotten to see her, if only you’d help me to get away that night. But you didn’t. So there goes your chance. It’s a shame, really. She’s beautiful, Roy.”

“Damn it, Jade,” he snapped. “Just tell me where she is. Is she here? Is she in Gotham right now?”

“The only thing I’m going to tell you is that she’s waiting for me,” she replied unmovingly. “And if I don’t come back--you could just imagine how lonely and sad she’ll feel, when she realized that no one is going to come for her.”

The insinuation stung him, just as she intended, and it wasn’t fair. He had never wanted to leave her sad and alone, never had wanted things to wind up like this.

Growing up, he had always dreamt to become a hero, like Oliver, like his own father. That’s why he had decided to join the police force once he had kicked the habit; since he hadn’t got Oliver’s political talent and he had strayed too far from the mountain forest for him to follow his father’s footsteps, he had figured that becoming a police officer was his way to do some good in this world. It was his job-- _his duty_ \--to stop crimes and bring the criminals to justice. He had this certain responsibility to uphold, and he had already bailed on it once.

“If I let you go, I’ll be just sending you back into committing more crimes,” he uttered, miserably. “I used to hope that one day you’ll come around and we’ll have a life together, but after five years in prison, you still hasn’t changed, not even one bit. I’m sorry, Jade, but I just can’t let you went off with the drugs.”

“But I did change, Roy,” she said. “I’m a mother now. Everything I had done in the past, I had done it for myself, now everything I do, I do it for her. And that’s exactly why you have to let me go--unless you want to take a mother away from a child.”

Her words dug deep into him, clawing him open and stirring him from whatever resolution he had.

Against his better judgment, Roy couldn’t really bring himself to move forward and apprehend her, but just rooted on the spot, hanging in quandary.

Right there, Jason was regarding him with concern; and in his weakness, Roy wanted to just look at his partner for help, wanted to just let someone else to make the choice and decided how to handle this situation.

He didn’t look at Jason though, just kept his gaze fixed upon Jade and tried his best to figure out what was the right decision.

 

***

 

“But was it the right thing?” He looked at Jason, green eyes whelmed by doubt and despair. “—I thought if I didn’t stop her this time, she’ll just end up doing something worse. She hadn’t been charged with murder just yet, but who knows?”

Jason hummed noncommittally; seeing how well Nguyen was with weapons, it wouldn’t surprise him if she already had some practice in dropping bodies.

Roy continued, “I just wanted to stop her before she hurts herself or anyone. But what if…what if someone is going to get hurt now that I arrested her? What if putting her on trial and sending her back to jail is only going to ruin a child’s life?”

“People already was hurt by what she did, Roy.”

Although he pretty much would’ve just gone with whatever decision his partner made, he did think Roy had done the right thing by arresting Nguyen and bringing her to the station back there.

“Even though you let her get away this time, so what? A perp like her will just wind up back in jail sooner or later.”

“But what if she won’t?” Roy retorted in an inward tone. “What if having a kid really did change her? What if she’s actually a good mother to her? She’s there with her this whole time, maybe not ‘there’ there, but she’s there. That’s more than I’ve even done for the kid.”

“Stop with the ‘what-ifs’ already. It’s tiresome and it makes you sound like a wimp,” Jason replied, rather bluntly except there’s no real heat in his voice. “--It’s not your fault that she keeps your kid away from you. Nguyen had everything coming for herself and you know that. If she really wants to be a good mom and do right by the kid, she should’ve just come up with a better life plan.”

“Is it really as simple as that?”

It probably wasn’t.

If thing really was as simple as that, then it probably wouldn’t have been so many broken parent-child relationships.

Unlike the scum that was his blood father, Jason did believe that his mother had loved him, might have even wanted to do right by him at some point. But that certain fact didn’t really change anything; because love alone just wasn’t the fix for everything. It couldn’t even fix her from her permanent problem and give her what she had needed to stop herself from being a trashy parent and eventually dying like a trash.

Since he wasn’t looking to aggravate his partner’s distress, he couldn’t really tell him all these. Instead, he gave Roy’s hand a squeeze.

Roy brushed his hand abstractedly with the pad of his thumb. His other hand remained around the glass of liquor.

Staring into the face of the drink, he spoke in a thick, pensive accent, “I need to find her. My kid.”

Jason nodded. “We’ll find her. Don’t worry about it.”

Ever since Nguyen had been taken into custody, she had been exercising her right to silence to the fullest; giving no response to either the accusations against her or any question about her and Roy’s child. But with all the resources in the GCPD at their hands, they would soon find the girl.

“What am I even supposed to say to her when we found her.”

“You’ll figure out something. You always have things to say.”

Roy gave a vague snuffle in response.

While the glass of liquor was like a dark gulf before Roy’s eyes, it was no more than a refreshment in Jason’s. All his life, he had been challenged by many evils, but substance abuse wasn’t one of those.

With a twist of the wrist, Roy slid the glass over to Jason’s side of the bar counter. “Thanks, partner,” he said, in a more relaxed voice. “You’re not very good at pep-talk but I’m really glad you’re here.”

“Where else would I be,” Jason replied mildly.

Roy’s gaze at him grew to glow with affectionateness as he looked around. Feeling a sudden dryness in his mouth, Jason turned to reach out his free hand and picked up the drink that was offered up to him.

Before he raised the glass, he said, “Just don’t be looking all sad around me like this all the time. I don’t want to have to cheer you up every day, partner--It’s your job to cheer me up from this whole world of upsetting shit.”

Roy cracked a smile at that. Jason gave his hand another squeeze while taking a sip of the drink. The corner of his mouth moved up involuntarily behind the liqueur glass.

 

 

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

It sounded like something interesting was happening on the TV. Attempted to catch a glimpse of it, she shifted around in her chair, leaving her own breakfast behind and turned to stare out curiously into the living room.

“Hey,” quickly, Artemis called out, tapping her index finger warningly against the table. “You know the rules. No distractions at mealtimes.”

Reluctantly, she turned back. “It’s the house rule. We’re not in our house anymore,” she pouted and said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Artemis replied. “We’re having a meal, and like Paula had taught us, we only eat or talk to each other, we don’t watch TV or play with our toys or our cellphones or anything during a meal.”

Seeing that she was still pouting, Artemis reached her hand across the table. She tried to dodge it, but Artemis’s hand came at her relentlessly to pinch her in the face.

Once she had gotten Lian to lose the pout and begin to giggle, her nice mouth smiled.

“Just eat your breakfast, Li,” said Artemis, “And sit tight in your chair. You’re going to spill something on yourself if you don’t stop moving around, and then we’ll have to put the baby napkin back to your neck again.”

“I don’t need the napkie. I’m not a baby,” she countered before returning to eating.

No one could leave the table until everyone had finished their meals. It was one of the many rules her grandmother had made. She missed Grandma Paula, and now that the excitement of going to a new place had subsided, she started to miss their house too.

To this moment, Lian still wasn’t entirely sure why they couldn’t just all stay at their old house in Palo Alto. She would really rather all three of them just stay at their old house. It was a nice place, and they hadn’t got as much rain back home as they had got in here. She and Artemis had been staying in Gotham City for a while by now, and although the apartment in here was nice and there seemed to have a lot of amazing things around this city that were left to explore, she had really begun to miss the sunshine in California.

It wasn’t permanent though. Lian was only supposed to stay in here until her mother come pick her up and bring her to their new home.

Mommy said it would be good for them to start a new life at somewhere else; she said that the house at Palo Alto reminded her too much of the past.

Right after Mommy had been released, she had come to stay with them in Grandma’s house for a month, and she didn’t seem to like it there.

“ _Your grandmother was a good person,_ ” Mommy had told her one night, when they had laid together on the bed in Lian’s room--which was also Mommy’s old room. “ _She was like the mother I never had. But I’ve never felt at home in here. I was always unhappy, you see. Every night I stayed in this room, all I can think of was that I needed to get out. So I did, again and again. Someone would always find me and bring me back. And once we’re back in the house, your grandmother and I would have this talk, until a couple of times later, we just sort of stopped talking and turned to fighting instead. That’s when your Grandma Paula had decided to bring Artemis to this house. She thought it could help, if I could have a little sister to hang out with and look after. It did help, for a while. I was happy to have Artemis around. She’s my first friend. Probably my only friend. But your grandmother and I…we never really stopped fighting, and this feeling I had—it didn’t disappeared. So one night, I ran out by myself, and I didn’t let anyone find me and bring me back again._ ”

It seemed odd that Mommy didn’t use to felt at home in Palo Alto with Artemis and Grandma. Lian always felt at home in Grandma’s house. It had been her home her whole life. But Mommy didn’t want to stay there. She wanted to go build her and Lian’s home at somewhere else--somewhere better than New York or California or Gotham; just the two of them, she said, mother and daughter, living together happily in their beautiful new home.

While Lian didn’t really want to leave Artemis and their old home behind, she did want to live with her mother. Artemis used to take her all the way to New York to visit Mommy at least once a month, and she had always looked forward to that, even though it had to take them hours just to get there and the prison was a dreadful place that scared her a little.

Being with her mother had always been what Lian wanted the most. She loved her mother, because she was her mother and she was nice and loved Lian very very much.

They used to talk about what they were going to do together once she was free. And now that she was, Lian was happy. She just hoped that Mommy could be around more.

She didn’t really get to see her mother as much as she had thought she would be. It had been days since the last time Mommy had come to see her. She didn’t stay over. When Lian had woken up the next morning and asked about her, Artemis had only said that she would call soon.

“Has Mommy called yet?” Lian asked while chewing her food slowly.

Artemis paused for a beat. “No, Li, she hasn’t.”

Lian lowered her head with disappointment. “Don’t be like that,” Artemis sighed. Her hand reached out again, not to pinch Lian but to bring her face up gently this time. “--Your mom just has a few things to take care of. Once she’s finished with those things, you’ll see her.”

Lian nodded in reply.

Once they had finished their breakfast, she jumped out of her seat and went to watch television right away.

The show that had been playing earlier had ended, but the next show seemed interesting too. She settled down on the couch comfortably.

Awhile later, someone came knocking on their apartment door. Artemis stopped cleaning the dishes and turned to see who that was.

Lian looked around and found that there were two men outside, both tall and handsome. Artemis frowned at them with suspicion.

While his red-haired companion was looking into the apartment eagerly as if he was in search for something, the dark-haired one started, “Artemis Crock?”

“Yes?”

“We’re from the GCPD, and we want to ask you some questions about your foster sister.”

Artemis murmured something softly. Lian couldn’t hear what exact word she said, but it must have been a bad word.

“Li?” Instead of replying to the dark-haired man, she turned around to Lian, making the two strangers turn to look at her too. “Could you go wait in your room while I’m talking to these people here?”

“Okay,” Lian nodded her head and moved out of the couch.

Both men were watching her while she was getting to her bedroom; notably the red-haired one, who was gazing at her intently with a strange stare. She couldn’t help herself but being held by his eyes.

Seeing her stand still before the door, Artemis urged, “Li.”

“I’m going,” Lian replied in a grumble.

The people didn’t resumed talking until she had shut herself inside the bedroom. Wanting to find out what was going on, Lian leaned her ear against the closed door. Much to her disappointment, she couldn’t make out the conversation outside.

She moved away then, flopping down on her bed and pressing her face into the tummy of Gumbo, her teddy bear friend. Mommy had sent Gumbo to Grandma’s house at her three-year-old birthday. Lian held her arms tight around him while trying to figure out what this visit could mean.

Moment later, there’s a tap-tap at her door. She looked up as the bedroom door slowly opened. The red-haired man was standing outside, mouth smiling a thin, reserved smile.

Keeping Gumbo in her hands, Lian sat up. “Hello,” she said.

“Hi,” the man replied, slowly and softly. “Mind if I come in?”

She nodded her head. The man drifted into her room then. The door was left open, but she couldn’t see Artemis or the dark-haired man anywhere.

There were just the two of them; and once again, the red-haired man--seemed to be around her mother’s age, tall and elongated with a pair of expressive green eyes--was gazing at Lian with that peculiar stare. It looked like he had something he really wanted to say to her, only he didn’t know how to start.

Lian started first, “I like your hair.” She regarded him curiously. Not a lot of people she knew had got a red head of hair like him. Mommy and Grandma both had dark hair, same as herself; and Artemis’s hair was blond. There’re a couple of people in her old neighborhood who had red hair, but those were in a different shade of red. She liked the man’s color better, it was bright and vivid.

Her innocent comment surprised the man in an instant. Then he widened his smile, looking much less nervous than before. “Thanks. I like yours.”

“But my hair is puffy,” she replied, raking her thick dark hair suspiciously.

“I think it’s beautiful.”

Lian cracked a smile at him. She didn’t know why this man and his friend were here, and the fact that they seemed to be here because of Mommy made her feel kind of worried; but there’s this thing about him that relaxed her. She guessed that it was because he was nice.

“I heard your aunt called you ‘Li’. Is Li your name?”

“It’s Lian. It means lotus.”

“Lian,” he nodded, walking slowly toward her. “--I love it. It sounds great.”

“What’s yours?”

“My name is Roy.” Crouching down before her, he said, in the gentlest of voices, “Nice to meet you, Lian.”

 

***

 

He sat alone in the visiting room and waited. Few minutes later, the guards brought her in.

He started once Jade had settled across him, “How are you doing?”

“Could’ve been better.” Her eyes were staring at Roy coldly and indifferently. Thinking he was here to ask her about the child again, she said, “--I’m not going to tell you where she is.”

Roy shook his head. “I already know,” he replied.

After checking the record in the child welfare system, it was confirmed that Jade was telling the truth. The child was never taken to adoption or to foster care.

Given that Jade would hardly leave the baby to just anyone, she must have been putting her in the hand of someone she trusted. It couldn’t be one of her friends from the old days, since every friend she had made in the past was only her friends when it benefited them. Those people would turn on her just as easily as she would them. So the only logical result was that she had the baby farmed out with her family.

As far as Roy knew, Jade had grown up without a family; but he did remember there’s this one girl with which Jade had been keeping contact back in the day. He had caught them talking with each other over the phone once. When he had asked Jade about it, she had said it was her foster sister from one of her old foster homes.

The way she had talked about that one home was different than whenever she had talked about everything else in her past. Although she had told Roy she had no intention to return to any of her old foster families, Roy believed that if she had to place her baby in somebody’s hand, it must have been theirs.

With that in mind, he and Jason had gone to ask Barbara to run a search for them. It didn’t take them long to chase down the lead to Paula Brooks and Artemis Crock.

“I met your sister,” he said, “She seems like a good girl.”

Jade sank deeper into her chair and ran a hand over her hair. Her expression grew tired, and a little bit frustrated.

Days since she had been arrested and remanded in custody, she had yet made one single phone call. Never once did she contact her foster sister and tell her about what happened, clearly was attempting to prevent Roy from finding out their connection. Artemis had been kept in the dark this whole time until Roy and Jason had gone to visit her at the apartment that was rented under her name.

When they had told the girl about the arrest, she didn’t seem to be too surprised though. Roy guessed that she must have known it for a long time that there’s a good chance something like this might happen.

Despite all the efforts Jade had put in to keep their daughter hidden, Roy still managed to find her. The fight in Jade’s eyes drained away as she realized that she had already lost this battle.

“You’ve seen her?” she asked, in a meek, distance voice.

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re right. She’s beautiful.”

A thin smile briefly graced her lips. Then she fell into silence for a moment.

“Did you tell her who you are?”

“Yeah. I told her. We talked.”

She shook her head, didn’t think Roy had understood her question correctly.

“Did you tell her _who_ you are?” she repeated the question one more time in a stressed tone. “—‘The one who took away her mother’.”

His body stiffened.

Taking some time to steady himself, he asked in reply, “What’s your plan, Jade? Let say you’ve sold the drugs and gotten the money, what are you going to do next? Are you going to retire? Find a new honest way to support her and yourself? Or are you just going to keep treading in this mud until something bad happens.”

She looked at him grimly. “I will never let anything bad happen to her.”

“But as long as you keep living this way you live, something bad _is_ going to happen,” Roy replied. “—To yourself, to her. You and I both know how dangerous this game is. You can live on like this and don’t give a fuck about when you’re going to get killed, but what about her? How long do you suppose you could keep her safe?”

Avoided his steady gaze, she bit down on her lips stubbornly and relapsed into silence.

“Is this really the sort of life you want for your daughter? _Our_ daughter?” he asked, voice softened with a hint of sadness. “—I want to take care of her from now on.”

Quickly, she looked up. “You’re not taking her away from me.”

Roy let out a bleak laugh. “I’m not,” he said. “She really loves you, Jade. And she misses you, she told me so. I can’t take her away from you even I try. But whether you like it or not, I’m still her father.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” she uttered ironically in return. “--Did you tell her the truth or did you lie to her like you had lied to me.”

He paused for a beat.

“I didn’t tell her.”

She snorted. “I got it all wrong,” she said, with a note of amusement in her voice. Adjusting herself to sit more comfortably in the chair, she tilted her head to study Roy. “—I thought I loved you because I saw something good in you. But maybe I only loved you because you’re just as bad as me.”

The way her mouth crooked into a biting smile annoyed him. “I didn’t lie to her either,” he returned sharply. “There’re a lot she needs to take in. I just didn’t want to dump it all on her at once.”

“Is that true?” she retorted. “Or are you just scared that she’ll hate you once she knows you’re the one who’s responsible for sending her mommy back to prison.”

It did scare him, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. Instead, he said, “Can you just stop treating me like I’m your fucking enemy for a second? I’m not your enemy.”

“But you’re not my friend either,” she said, eyes staring down at her own hands on the table. One of her hands, the shooting one, was still in bandage after Roy had shot her in the wrist.

After a moment of thought, she uttered, “I don’t want to hate you, Roy. Because if I do, that means I still have feelings for you. But when I look at you—I can’t stop but think just how much I hate you.”

It was his turn to avoid her gaze.

Few seconds later, he looked up again, eyes meeting hers evenly. “Hate me or not hate me--that’s not going to change the fact that you’re going to see a lot of me from now on.”

Jade had just gotten to her first trial yesterday for possession of drugs and being an accessory to Scarface’s crimes. At the moment, she had yet convicted, but there’s little chance that she wouldn’t be sentenced to long years in prison.

“I don’t want our daughter to grow up without a mother any more than I want her to grow up without a father,” he said. “I’m going to bring her to see you tomorrow, and I’m going to bring her to you every week for as long as your sentence is. I’m not leaving you alone, Jade. Not this time. We can never come back to what we were and we may never be friends, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a place in each other’s life.”

The guards who had been standing around stepped forward and informed them the visiting time was over. Roy sat in silence as the guards brought Jade up from her seat.

The woman started quietly before she was escorted out of the visiting room, “Tell her the truth, Roy. She may get upset, but she’s a smart girl. Once you explain everything to her, she’ll understand.”

When Roy turned to look at her over his shoulder, he found that her expression had thawed, even if only so slightly. “I’m holding you to your word,” she was saying, “See you tomorrow, Roy.”

“See you tomorrow, Cheshire.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that the lack of Roy and Lian's screen time may feel quite unsatisfying, but they've just gotten to know each other in this, and it's going to take a lot of time for them to build up their father-daughter relationship and their new life. It's a whole other story for me. So as for now, I'm just gonna leave things here. 
> 
>  
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> Thank you for reading!


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